Art,style,speed and adrenaline...directly from the future!
Nothing stake,nothing draw.
Supported by Gremlin Int.,they created Motorhead,a futuristic high speed arcade racer,directly to Playstation.The first hype was the game's unique-high frame rate.They said that it could be the fastest racer on the Sony's console...you can believe it!
Motorhead is a great collage of the Neo-art,the stylish design and the extremly fast displaying.The concept is simple as an arcade game requires.You must take a part in the Transatlantic speed league with cool looking futuristic sportcars in designed/urban tracks.The league takes 3,championship-point based divisions.If you won the league,you'll be promoted to the next division with stronger cars and more stages.Easy,isn't?
Graphically,Motorhead is just superb!The PC-style framerate is working well (50fps with 3 rivals and 25fps with 7 of them) and looks pretty dynamic.Indeed,the game's graphical engine uses the DFE (Distant Fog Effect) to keep the framerate as high as possible...do you think it's lame?Fog effect in a racer game?Normally,it would be real,but check this: the fog effect fits nice on the game's main theme-the dark,gray,shady future!
A supporting graphical effect which looking cool!Bullseye!
But because all of this,you have to learn the racetrack's line and the turns quickly for the victory.A little setback,nothing more.After 3-4 laps,the fog won't make you lost in the track.Another small flaw is,when all the 4 cars in the screen doing tyre-burning actions,this 50 fps has the bias to falling back a little...but only for a second.Almost nothing,but the review wouldn't be full without mentioning it.
The whole game shows well detailed envirotments such as futuristic cities,parkways,mountain roads,industrial harbours...and so on.The cars are the same.There are absolutely believable,nice prototype designs on the grid.Their elaboration isn't match for the Gran Turismo indeed,but still looks good.Futurostyle...again.
Another highly mentionable thing in the graphics:the lights!From the headlights to the night urban orange and yellowish shine with the cool lens spark effect...beautiful artwork.With all of this visuals,the loading time is quick and fair.
But the shining surface is just the beginning.
For a fast,arcade game,it's necessary to make an easy handling method...so...no sweat!Motorhead is fine by this aspect as well.
The game's control system is creditable.All the cars running smoothly both digital and analog controlling.The drifting is nice and easy.You can use the handbrake or simly a small overturn for sliding through the bends.Learning how to steer is just a minute.
To err is human-To err is AI!
Yeah,the artifical racers in the TSL are well trained drivers,their problem-solving ability is very good...and consequently,they can make mistakes!Personally,I've never seen more human-like driving errors!The AI cars are able to interfere/disturb the racing progress of each other,they can crash in difficult sections,doing overdrifts (overturning while slide with speed loss) in bends (and a quick steering correction!).So even if you're running on the last place,you can always hoping in the other driver's bad luck!
By the way,most of people believes that Motorhead's AI is cheating with the acceleration and speed.It's not real.This misunderstanding is because an old,arcade racer-rule: If you choose the automatic transmission,your car will be a bit slower.So if you want to drive comfortable,without the troubles of manual gearing,you'll suffer a little negative performance handicap.That's why they say that the AI is cheating...but as you see,they're wrong.For example,at the final race against the Serpent supercar,you MUST choose the manual gearing or you'll be defeated without any chance.With manual transmission,you can feel and experience your car's maximum performance.If you know the racetracks well already,you should try this way of the Motorhead-driving.
Did I miss something?Indeed!The sensational music!
Olof "Groven" Gustaffson,the composer,is a real artist of the futuristic techno-like,house and trance elements.His work in the Motorhead is simply perfect,a stylish,atmospheric soundtrack-masterpiece through the whole game and fortunately,all the songs are avalaible in CD format.He's a genius!
For the maximal details,He also made the ingame sounds such as car noises and envirotment effects.You can hear the life as you rushing through the tracks!Ambient Chinese tune coming from the restaurant...machinery noises at the mining area...heavy techno permetaes the air around the nightclub...etc.Sounds nice!
There's no thing without flaws...so let's see the tiny dark side of Motorhead.
First,the whole game is too...slight.All the cars and stages looks superb,but there's only 10 vehicles and 8 racetracks...we want more...we need more!
I would be happy with more game modes too!There's only a quick GP mode (a race with the actual settings),single race,league,time attack and ghostcar mode(which is almost the same as the time attack).Unfortunately,You can't find any longlife-guarantee in the multiplayer modes (head to head mode and an interesting time difference based way of racing)as well...
But by ascending through all of this,all I can say that Motorhead is a great,enormously misunderstanded and underestimated game.An extremly fast,shining future vision about the arcade racing.
When it's the future,I want to take a part in it!