MotorStorm

The Good
When I first came across the demo of the game when the PS3 first released I was a bit hesitant, I was still stuck on my PS2 and was unwilling to give it up and upgrade, but after seeing this game it changed my mind. Now after all these years, I finally upgraded and this game was immediately on my list. First off the graphics are simply gorgeous. Now true there is not a lot of color because of the desert environments, but the level of detail put into the cars are something to behold. Seeing mud flying when you breeze through a small gully and see it cake onto your hood and actually dry, now that's insanely detailed, even better when you come back on the next lap and see your tracks complete with built up water in the treads.

My favorite though is when you wreck and see every bit of your car scatter across the plains. From the individual tire springs to even the spark plugs it boggles the mind that a game with this level of detail could exist. Even better when you pause the game you can get a 360 degree view, free of menu options and see your beautiful masterpiece of twisted metal. And if your very sadistic, smash your motorcycle into a huge boulder and watch you rider fly through the air and slam hard into the ground for a very satisfying crunch.

The audio department also lends to the game's positives with rock music that seems suited to the game and beautiful sound effects including hearing your turbo boost kick in. (I love the option of where you abuse your boost to much...BOOM!) The controls are decent, nothing great but it takes some time to get used to power sliding in the mud or trying to judge your landings when you jump through the variety of ramps scattered throughout the game. The choices of the vehicles are nice too, including Baja trucks, dune buggies, motorcycles, rally cars and the ever favorite big rig.

The Bad
Well, a few things really did hurt it for me one of which was some of the collision detection problems. It seems at times where you think you just barely missed a rock it looks like you just slammed into an invisible wall or get nudged by an opponent and your car seems to spiral out of control. One other thing I noticed was that some of the obstacles shouldn't be in here since you can't destroy them although it looks like you should. Well, let me be more precise, in one race I had the semi selected and was racing against another big rig and was heading for this messed up shack that looks like a two-year old on a big wheel could have smashed through and not wanting to fight off the semi, I figured I would take the easier (at least I thought) route and headed straight for the shed....BAM...my big rig splintered into pieces. Things like that is very annoying. (Though this has been changed around in Pacific Rift where you can smash through trees with a monster truck)

The only other thing that bothers me is that the game seems very shallow. There isn't that much to do except to win races and unlock other events, but with basically one environment just with different looks and a handful of vehicles with different paint jobs trying to make it look like more hurts the overall fun value. If you really want to you can just unlock all the tracks and other paint schemes with cheat codes since there is no trophies to be obtained and really no other rewards. Really these are the only two things that bother me.

The Bottom Line
In the end, this game isn't bad but considering the plethora of other games out now and it's sequel, paying 20 to 30 dollars for this game seems a bit much. I paid around 9 dollars for mine and even that seems like it almost wasn't worth it. It's a great game with awesome visuals, fun bumper to bumper racing and great sounds, but with detection problems and the lack of variety in the game really keeps me from recommending this game. I only recommend this for hardcore racing gamers, but for the casual and the curious, just rent it or borrow from a friend since this was a launch title and sure to be in plentiful supply.

*Note: I didn't get to the multiplayer since by now the community is just about dead, but from what I understand from other people I talked to it was insanely fun, but wore down fast due to the lack of variety in the tracks