MotorStorm Apocalypse: PS3

MotorStorm's been one of Sony's stalwarts for the PlayStation 3 and it's one of the first of the first-party games to reach the three game milestone on this generation of hardware. It's a landmark moment, in its own way, and one that developer Evolution has celebrated by forcing a major rethink upon its anarchic racing series. MotorStorm's always been about offering messy thrills over the more refined action of some of its arcade racing brothers. That much hasn't changed - chaos is at the core of MotorStorm Apocalypse and it's a game that takes more pleasure than most in pulverising the player. If anything, it's a game that's more about the destruction wrought than the racing offered, something that's at the very heart of this particular outing.

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Apocalypse brings MotorStorm's world literally crashing to its feet, but in doing so it brings Evolution's formula to a natural conclusion. Here, chaos reigns. A thinly disguised San Francisco hosts the MotorStorm tour and it's fast turning to rubble. With the city reduced to cascading concrete and tumbling skyscrapers the challenge now comes from the environment as much as it does your fellow racers.

Racing games and storylines go together like slugs and salt, but Apocalypse has a crack at getting the two to play nice. Evolution has wrangled an excellent sense of progression with its single-player Festival mode, though that doesn't come from the animated cutscenes that thread through each of the three different riders' stories - these are best watched with one hand over your eyes, the other furiously stabbing the start button in an attempt to skip through these atrocities.

Its real achievement is in giving every race a sense of context. Each rider's story takes place over three days and each offers different perspectives on the tale of a city that's eating itself in increasingly spectacular fashion. There's a defined start, middle and end, with each story bookended with mad dashes to and from the MotorStorm carrier.

And while its cutscenes aren't exactly Oscar-winning material, at least the action itself is comparable to some of Hollywood's more explosive moments. When things blow up in MotorStorm Apocalypse – which they'll do frequently – they do so in style and with an often jaw-dropping sense of scale.

The level of devastation is phenomenal and what's really impressive is how Evolution destroys an entire city without ever breaking a sweat. Even as bridges buckle and buildings collide the frame rate remains smooth, and the amount the game throws on to the screen is an incredible achievement in itself – and one that's amplified brilliantly for those fortunate enough to play the game in 3D, a feature that Evolution manages to wring more out of than much of its competition.

MotorStorm Apocalypse can be a victim of its own ambition, though. With every effort evidently placed on making the decaying city the star, the vehicles themselves suffer a little. MotorStorm's never been a game about precision handling and the fast and loose nature of its garage goes hand-in-hand with the nature of its racing, but there's still a lot to be desired in the way that they feel.

New additions like the hot hatch and muscle car are executed with a certain amount of purpose, and both are satisfyingly sturdy in their cornering, but when it moves over to two wheels it's a little less convincing. The superbike and chopper both feel disappointingly flimsy, and the riders never seem to really be part of the action around them.

Such problems are easy to forget in the bustle of the pack, though, and the multi-class racing is as frenetic as ever. The boost system's been refined for the better, with the overheat bar now cooling down when the player is airborne, and it adds a new layer of strategy and a little order to the otherwise chaotic racing. MotorStorm Apocalypse is still, however, a game that can be frequently brutal.

Even at their most serene the MotorStorm games have often been cruel mistresses, and that's true more than ever before in Apocalypse. With so much track furniture falling from the skies it's all too easy to get inadvertently snagged on the backdrop, and its enthusiasm for destroying your vehicle can become tiresome and more than a little frustrating.

The fellow racers' generosity helps ease the pain, but the rubber-banding can be overplayed, especially in the earlier races where it seems impossible not to win. These problems iron themselves out over time though. With a little familiarity the courses become less treacherous and as the game progresses the AI puts up more of a fight, even if the difference between vehicle classes seems muted in comparison to previous games.

These problems all but disappear in the multiplayer and the chaos that blights the single-player can make for a brilliantly anarchic experience when shared. Online racing is backed up by a Call of Duty-like perks system that's well thought out, although server problems that have blighted the game since launch make it hard to enjoy them properly.

Thankfully MotorStorm's offline multiplayer is in a class of its own and it helps that it's a class with depressingly low attendance these days. It's a welcome reminder of how much fun four-player splitscreen can be and it's another feather for Evolution's technical cap. The game remains steady even when it's asked to render its chaos four times over, ensuring that this is Apocalypse's standout mode.

Closing Comments
MotorStorm Apocalypse’s shift to the end of the world helps distil the very essence of what this series is about. Racing through the rubble is unpredictable and thrilling, but some of the rougher edges have also been amplified. Its ambition can push the game beyond the limits of frustration, though it also gives rise to some spectacular moments that help make this an experience that, while flawed, is brilliantly unique.

by: Martin Robinson

Posted in: Racing