It can be a pretty fun experience, it's just a shame there aren't many ways to experience what MotorStorm has to offer…
MotorStorm offers the best thing a game needs to have: fun! If you are looking for a crazy, creative and fun game or any of these kinds of games than think no more, this is the game for you!! Right when you start playing you will know and feel that this game will offer you lots of funny and entertaining days!!
The graphics are quite good. Everything is polished and well coloured. The frame rate is very good and the visuals are outstanding. PS3 can offer much better graphics, but even so, these are outstanding for a release game! The game displays a 720p image resolution and there is absolutely no need for 1080p image resolution.
The gameplay is quite simple. Using the R2 to accelerate and the L2 to brake you won't have any problems breaking and accelerating at the same time. There is also a Turbo that every vehicle has that can be used by pressing the X button, but you won't be able to use it for very long otherwise it will overheat and explode.
Good sound effects and music but nothing out of the ordinary here. The game offers a wide variety of music's, most of them will be Hard-Rock and Soft-Rock like. If you thing this kind of music does not fit a racing game then you are wrong. MotorStorm is a brutal off-road racing game in witch everything goes to win a race. You can kick any other racer off a bike or a quad or try to ram them against the wall if they are using other types of vehicles. But be aware because you are not the only one who will try to do this. The A.I. will do everything to win a race! It will play dirty if necessary or try to make a run for it depending on what kind of vehicle you have and they have. If you are standing on a bike and one other racer is on a Big Rig then you will want to run away from him because he will try to ram or destroy your bike if he gets close to you. But if it's the opposite situation the enemy will be the one running away from you. If you both have the same vehicle or two vehicles with equal or close strength then either they will leave you alone or try to stop you from winning depending on the situation you are. If you are almost falling of a ledge they will push you down but if you are normally running on the middle of the road they won't try anything on you. It's very funny to see the enemy react on the different vehicles and situations. The game A.I. is also outstanding, such as the variety of vehicles you will be able to ride on. They can go from the fragile two-wheel bikes that have a high speed to the monstrous trucks Big Rigs that lack on acceleration. There will be an enjoyable variety of 7 class vehicles to choose from but you won't just be choosing the vehicle you like the most, you will also have to learn how to use these vehicles to your advantage. The Bikes and Quads don't like mud, unlike the Mud Pluggers who love the mud, but Bikes and Quads are good on dirt roads unlike Big Rigs that are quite good on muddy roads too. The Rally Cars love soft roads and the Racing Trucks like rocky roads. Then you have the Buggies that have an average performance on every kind of terrain. You will have to know how to use each vehicle on different terrains on the game races. There aren't many race tracks to choose from but each race will have lots of ways to reach the finish line. But since most of all available ways to reach the finish line are made of different road types it won't be of much use since you won't be taking a Rally Car to the mud, you will take it mostly on the soft road for a better performance.
Then you still have the online mode that can offer you more entertainment. You can play up with 12 players at the same time and you won't notice much lag at all unless you play with 12 players. Sometimes you may notice a little lag here and there with 12 players playing but it won't affect the race in any way. The online also contains statistics of your victories and losses you made in online races and you can also see other player's statistics. There are also some patches released from time to time to add new game types and fix glitches witch are extremely rare.
It may seem that MotorStorm is the perfect game but it isn't. And it's not close to it. Let's say you want to make a free race, that you want to choose your vehicle and race track and the number of your opponents. It is not possible. There isn't a free game mode so you will only be able to play the races you have beaten on the campaign mode. And most of these races don't even allow you to choose your vehicle. There isn't an offline multiplayer mode too witch could be very useful in a racing game. There has been a patch recently that added a new game type, called Time-Attack. This mode allows you to choose your vehicle and race track but you won't be able to race off against real racers, only ghost racers. It is possible to compare the times of other players via online ranking and to send ghost copies all over the world and upload these to try and beat the player's ghost race but it's just not that interesting because you don't have anyone real to fight off against. It's an improvement that adds some more value to the game but it's still not enough. There is still need for a full free race mode.
Once you finish the campaign mode, you have the online mode left and the Time-Attack mode, but for those that don't have online connection they don't have anything more to play with.
The game campaign is long and it will keep you entertained for a long time. It will start off with some easy to win races and then it will end with some very hard to win races, but nothing that one can't beat. The campaign race system is made of ticket races. You start with a small number of tickets and when you beat those tickets races you are given new ticket races to beat. At some point it will be required to have at least a podium position on all previous races so this ticket system might not prove to be that effective after all, but since you don't need to beat the tickets in order it will give you some sort of free-style campaign.
In conclusion, MotorStorm is a game that every gamer and racing fan must own. If you want to try something different and new then you should definitely try this game out. But if you don't have an online connection and you don't really like off-road racing games you might want to think a little before buying this game. But since MotorStorm is an innovative and immersive game you might still like it after all. It will consume you for a long time. At least until the sun sets in the game…