Once upon a time, there was nothing. And Sony said, let there be light, and there was light. And Evolution Studios said, let there be high-res hard shadowing, and there was high-res hard shadowing. And then came perfected bump mapping, eye-popping lightning effects, million polygon cars, particle effects that no one had ever seen. And Sony saw that it was good, but on the 6th day Evolution was tired, and It realized that in spite of the beauty of It's creation... there was no life.
I could go on and on, but instead of becoming religious by playing Motorstorm, quite the opposite has happened. I am furious, I give it a mere 4 stars out of 10. How dare I? Behold! The Antichrist! Let's start from scratch with the concept of Motorstorm. In the desert, there are festivals where everything with an engine, from bikes and ATV's to hummers and 18-wheelers, are competing across sand dunes, rocks and mountains. Everything is chaos, since there in theory are no roads. The game runs in full HD, every crash is detailed down to the last engine part flying. Mud clashes on the car and stays there, and when driven into dust... THAT stays on the mud; it's THAT cool. And then you ask, can it get any better? And the answer, I'm afraid, is a resounding yes.
It seems that in the 3 years it took to make this game, no designer ever thought of implying that little ingredient that makes us wanna play... something that's called "Gameplay". You pick a "ticket" (race) and join. You cannot choose the vehicle of your desire for the most part. In game you press the X button or R2 depending on your setup, and go. You smash into others, they smash into you. Fun for about 20 seconds, until you've restarted the race 15 times. See, Motorstorm's AI is designed to drive ANYTHING into the dirt, apparently to make things more challenging. The problem is that it doesn't try to win, if you're driving next to someone, the AI will force you into a rock, and continue to do so while all the other opponents race off in the distance.
While it's a central part of the game to crash constantly (about 10-15 times during each race) it becomes frustrating when you can drive like a princess not hitting anything, and then crash because of a collision error. Even though you're back on track with full boost (yes, you can boost Burnout style) you've still lost your position. Except if you roll over, lies still for 15 seconds, lose your position, then you DON'T get full boost. Why the hell that is, I have no idea. Oh... and it's ONE player only, so forget about inviting your friends over to brag about your new system. Seems that extra controller became pretty expendable, huh?
The online component is great, but sadly suffers from the same glitches, and from the simplicity of this game.
So, what we eventually end up with, is a long game, not because of content (9 tracks) but because of the 14 opponents against YOU. A game that manages to frustrate instead of entertain. It's a Ferrari with no engine, it's a model with no brains (oh wait, who cares about that?) Simply, it's artwork. Do not buy it, LOOK at it. When you've looked, go away. It's already used it's potential.
Sorry Evolution. Restart the race and try again.