Can you guess which car Trevor's driving?

by Trevor A.

The MotorStorm series was first introduced to the PlayStation 3 near the birth of the console. I enjoyed the first game, and MotorStorm: Pacific Rift is just as good, if not better, than it’s predecessor.

If you aren’t familiar with MotorStorm, I’ll give you the DL. First and foremost, MotorStorm is a racing game. It isn’t your typical racer like Gran Turismo or Forza Motorsport; you can explode, literally. Okay, not literally, but you do in the game. Like last time, you have a Boost Gauge. Go over the limit and your vehicle will blow up and you’ll be decommissioned for a short period of time. Unfortunately, no speedometer is present, like last time, so you can’t tell how fast you are going. I guess that doesn’t matter to most, but to me it does a little. Your vehicle can sustain some damage, just like the Forza Motorsport series (hopefully Gran Turismo 5 will feature some damage simulation…it is the “real driver simulator” after all). Take too much damage, and kaboom, you’re dead. Until you respawn, that is. Most importantly, there is more than one path to finish the race. You are given eight different vehicles to choose from: Bike, ATV, Buggy, Rally Car, Racing Truck, Mudplugger, Big Rig, and Monster Truck. Each handle differently, as I will explain further into the review.

When you boot up MotorStorm: Pacific Rift, the first thing you do is choose your driver. You can decide their gender and what gear they wear. This game really isn’t about customizing your driver, but at least they allow you to do some things with it. You can always change your appearance in the Garage and selecting Driver if you feel like doing so.

After that and the game introduction, you then have four categories to go through. The Festival is packed with four zones with the elements in front of the word zone (i.e. Earth, Air, Fire, Water). There are sixteen tracks in total, which is double the amount of the original MotorStorm. That’s a plus! You’ll go venture through jungles, beaches, volcanic mountains, caves, and a rundown sugar factory. New to the series are cool downs and overheat. There are different bodies of water that you can ride over which will cool down your vehicle’s engine. Granted, it will slow you down if you stay in the water for too long, so the water is pretty neutral. You also need to be wary of deep water. Send yourself into that, and you’ll blup, blup, blup… sink. Areas that are fiery or volcanic are your enemy no matter what. The engine overheats a-heck-of-a-lot quicker and if you fall into any lava you’ll have to wait to respawn to be back in the race. The Boost Gauge also depicts the situation you are in: blue/white while cooling down or on fire while overheating. The boosting in the gauge remains the same from the first game during normal boosts.

Screen capture from MotorStorm: Pacific Rift. Take that, you rebel scum!

The graphics look very much improved from last go around, but for some reason the textures look a little blurred or smudged. There aren’t any technical problems, which is a nice thing to see considering how it’s the third year of the PlayStation 3 now. The character models aren’t bad either, and each venue looks absolutely gorgeous. The vehicles look fantastic. Everything just looks amazing.

The controls feel a little looser than last time. It’s a lot easier to turn sharply, which is a good/bad thing if you implement it at the right time. R2 is still the gas and X is still to boost. There aren’t too many changes, except that the Square button isn’t to punch people; L1 is to punch to the left and R1 is to punch to the right. But that only works if you’re in a bike or ATV. If you’re in a Buggy, Rally Car, and so forth, you actually boost into your opponent. It looks very cool when it’s done right. Square is still to honk and taunt, while O remains the handbrake. You can now also go through songs on the fly by pushing left or right on the directional pad. It is set to go through the list in alphabetical order, but you can change it to shuffle if you wish to do so. Pushing up or down on the d-pad increases or decreases the volume of the music.

Personally, I believe I’ve invested more time on MotorStorm: Pacific Rift than I did in the original. I’ve sank seven hours into the game (it shows you how many hours you put in your statistics) and plan to put more. And there’s a trophy for playing the game for 10 hours. Speaking of which, there are 50 Trophies, all of which are relatively achievable. Some might be troublesome. I managed to get the Tumbler Trophy online going off a ramp. Some guy hit me from behind and sent me spinning, but I landed it and got the Trophy. It was pretty sweet.

Online play is pretty fun. It’s responsive and user friendly. At least it isn’t like the cruddy Soulcalibur IV servers that kick you out or can’t find anyone to fight. I have not had one single problem while playing online. I haven’t been kicked off, haven’t lagged, or haven’t completely froze.  Of course, the people you encounter might be friendly or aggressive, but it is MotorStorm and your goal is to beat the living snot out of everyone, even if you have to throw a punch or two (in the game).

And the final and the two best things I love about this game: LOAD TIMES! It loads so much faster than the first MotorStorm. Seriously, you could have made a sandwich, eaten it, and then clean up the kitchen before it was done loading. I loved the game, but man, the load times killed it sometimes. It’s definitely faster and there haven’t been any freezing problems yet, and hopefully never. The second would have to be four-player split screen! Never should a racer be without local multiplayer. Or any game in general that makes sense to have multiple people playing. Trust me, it doesn’t go too well when everyone wants to play a game that is fun, but only one person can at a time.

MotorStorm is fo sho a must have game. It’s packed with Trophies (as will new games released in ’09 and henceforth), online and local play, has more tracks with more paths to sink your teeth in and it looks awesome.

We bought this game at Best Buy for $39.99. MotorStorm: Pacific Rift is rated Teen.