Gentlemen, start your graphics engine.
“MotorStorm” roars onto the PlayStation 3, splattering mud and kicking up dust in the most glorious mess seen to date on the new system.
And just in time, as far as PS3 fans and Sony bookkeepers are concerned. For almost six months, the new Sony gaming box has relied more on potential than high-octane thrills. The PS3 might look like it was smuggled out of Area 51, but no one had created a game to really show off all the technology that is stuffed into the gleaming black package. Watching the high-definition copy of “Talladega Nights” that shipped with the machine went only so far to justify the purchase of this otherwise pricey home-entertainment system.
“MotorStorm” might lack the sort of genre-busting innovation that you always hope will arrive on a new gaming system. But even though this rally-racing title sticks to the muddy ruts of games that have come before, the developers have done an admirable job of putting high-definition media to use by creating some heart-pounding fun.
Racing with motorcycles, dune buggies, semis and more, players strap into or onto a hunk of metal and then throttle down the desolate desert track.
Speed always has been the friend of graphics. Once players get the scenery flying by fast enough, the game can drop details because the driver’s eyes have to stay focused on the road. With “MotorStorm,” it turns out that your imagination still looks out the window while the rest of the brain concentrates on keeping your vehicle on the track. “MotorStorm” just feels more exciting because it looks so great.
Ironically, all that detail in the graphics doesn’t have a corresponding level of bits and pieces anywhere else. Unlike most race titles on the market, you can’t customize your vehicles, tweak the suspension, select the tires or modify the fuel-injection system. So, rather than deliver the most sophisticated driving game ever seen, “MotorStorm” sticks with handing over a game that feels like the sort of thing that costs a dollar a play at the local high-end video arcade.
And in that sense, “MotorStorm” is less the killer application for the system than it is its best demo.
But what this game demonstrates bodes well for the platform. By opening up the racetracks with a variety of surfaces and undulating driving lines, debris and obstacles that clatter around the track, and a high-fidelity soundtrack, the environment rather than the game plays star. What “MotorStorm” might lack in the mental challenge of customization in the garage, it makes up for by offering a place so vivid that you find yourself tearing around the same tracks again and again just to relive the experience.
Like a return trip to Disneyland, the scenery might not change, and that’s OK. The experience of walking down Main Street, or burning rubber across the desert, provides its own sense of excitement and renewed discovery. “MotorStorm” shows us that graphics still matter.
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“MotorStorm”
VIDEO GAME|For PlayStation 3| $59.99|Rated T for Teen
