MotorStorm: Pacific Rift

Motorstorm was one of the best off roading experiences not because of its quality or quantity but of playing it for sheer fun. When Pacific Rift was announced, it had want want want in it, to top that quality and quantity that Motorstorm was in desperate need of. Motorstorm mantains all the fun its predeccessor packed with quality over quantity as Motorstorm is nearly the best sequel we could have hoped for, from a Motorstorm sequel. Welcome to Motorstorm!

Motorstorm's single player is based around Festivals. There are four Festivals and each are based around one of the four attributes; Air, Earth, Fire and Water. Each Festival consists of 15 events totalling at 60 events. You won't be able to just progress through one Festival at a time but have to progress through them at a balanced degree. The reason behind this, is at the start you're only given access to three events for each Festival and you must complete 3/4 of them to advance to the next level. Advancing onto the next level gives you access to two more events or so for each Festival and eventually because rank progression will get harder and harder, you'll have to complete each and every event in the end to reach the last and final rank eight.

Advancing to the next level doesn't just give you access to more events but at the start you're limited to three vehicle classes and slowly throughout you can unlock more and more classes coresponding to your level. This means the difficulty will be challenging at the beginning because you're limited to a few classes, but also so challenging that even when you're given access to most vehicle classes,you're handed out with obstacles to overcome in the later events such as limited crashes and time limits. The only time I felt punished was when I first started playing the game and the AI and their agression were sometimes just too much in the beginning but that's not to say it is punishing all the time, far from it after a few races you'll easily be getting the swing of Motrstorm.

What makes Motorstorm such a good sequel is the fact everything wanted in it was included in it. Lets start with the cars, fortunately more classes have been introduced to make the game have more variety and more accessible, to name a few, bikes, big rigs and even monster trucks with a total of eight classes. Each are not just finely tuned but incredibly well tuned. You will most likely favour one or two classes but that's down to your preference in their strengths and weaknesses.

Then you have 16 race courses the longevity and multiple paths in the courses makes each one so well designed coupled with the lush graphics and well layouted design which adds up to a choice which will make you hard done by because each track is so enjoyable as compared to any other track. Out of these 16 tracks, there are roughly four tracks for each Attribute. As mentioned earlier the attributes are Air, Earth, Fire and Water. Motorstorm however has included almost every possibility in it, it's hard to ask for anything more.

Although a disappointing fact is that Motrostorm has been rated as a 16+ game which is completely undeserving seeing as the prequel wasn't a 16+ and the sequel is no more the violent aside it's punching drivers of bikes, this no worse than your typical Spider Man game.

The game play is so polished it feels perfect, I couldn't really ask for anymore from the creators of Motorstorm. The driving and physics themselves feel insanely over the top but then it wouldn't be Motorstorm, would it? Bikes are faster than buggies and more agile but then you're in for a rough time on the Water Tracks, furthermore they stand no chance against Big Rigs and Monster Trucks. To counter act the Water Tracks is the ATV (All Terrain Vehicle) which is slower but copes much better on Water Tracks but is still equally as brittle. Buggies are a bit tight on the handling and unstable but work very fluidly with the game play. Rally Cars are a little faster than Racing Trucks but are a little less tough so take your pick! Big Rigs are very tightly handled yet are so well balanced considering their size, however there not quite the strongest vehicle as that domains with the Monster Truck the looser handled yet most powerful vehicle in the game.

The control scheme is superb once more and also innovative. Using the L1 and R1 are really only used to knock someone on the left of you or right of you. L1 applies to knocking on the left and R1 applies to the right hand side. It sure is fun when knocking someone of their bike or getting a Monster Truck to steer a Buggy of course. The best addition on the control pad is the x button; it isn't over powered or under powered. You can boost yourself with the meter for up to five seconds straight but use it for too long and you'll explode into a ball of fire, forgot to mention anyone in your radius also explodes for some explosive time! The boost goes down slowly so you can use it enough use of it to make it really effective but beware so can your opponents. If you're in water, you're in luck because of the physics, water cools your boost down when you are submerged but if you choose a Fire Track you're most likely doomed for when you make a jump over a volcano, your boost will flare up alot. Alot!

The graphics are magnificent. The tracks are designed with multi paths which are balanced with each multi path as short or as long as each other. What encourages exploration and replay value on some tracks is the fact that some multiple paths are only open to certain vehicles, for example there's no way a Big Rig is going to get under a two metre tall branch without crashing. The tracks are so well laid out it's hard to think of any other parts of tracks to be improved upon. The graphics have really had effort put into, the cliffs, jungles, rivers and volcanoes are simply put: Amazing. The detail is significantly above par, it's easy to say they're revolutionary. I've never seen such gorgeous, lush graphics with an amazing sense of detail and texture.

It's not just the graphics that won me over but the lighting and shadows combined with the physics. Jungles are incredibly well lighted and shadowed; cliffs are shadowed perfectly then at the edge of them, they'll have the suns rays beaming at them. Vehicles that go through water will leave their tracks in muddy damp puddles and in a different situation, get wet when driving through a shallow lake then drying off once they then move into a jungle. Volcanoes lift of some dazzling steam and crackling pops of lava. Character models and vehicles are also put in the mix of perfection because of the lighting and shadows effects involved with them, when a vehicle goes through a jungle there may be a hole through the trees giving of some glaring light onto the vehicle and character. Every single part of the graphics are gratifyingly stunning.

Seismic crashes are fantastic, and make you cry out in laughter (especially with friends). Unfortunately the ability to Save Videos on crashes have been disabled but the sound just makes you so giddy about the crashes. Whether a Big Rig crunches a Bike or there's a tense side on side railing crash between a Buggy and another Buggy. There's all ways something to loathe about in the seismic crashes. While there isn't a huge variety of songs, the picked and selected songs are rightly picked and done so. The songs really fit in with the theme of Motorstorm. Pendulum's "Tarantula" and others are only few of the well picked and excellent soundtrack options totalling at least 15 songs.

Pacific Rift has included four player split-screen, a great feature to compensate for the lonely one player that the past game didn't receive. It's really fun just to screw around and crash into one another. In fact the most (half at least) amount of time I've spent on Motorstorm is just playing around with my friends, making it great for small parties.

In the multi player, Pacific Rift allows up to 12 players to drive at once in a single race! Given all the aggression and mayhem caused by the drivers, it's surprising to see that the races hold up virtually lag free and most of all, there are hardly any frame rate issues. Pacific Rift also translates all tracks from the single player to multi player successfully without any presentation or texture blemishes.

An additional feature is the ranking up feature consisting of five ranks each with three classes for each rank. The higher you progress, the more you must mantain your progress. For if you are Rank 4, Silver and you come 10th in a race, you'll be downgraded. This is neat little twist which destroys the point of "time spent equals top rank" where as now it's up to "skill equals top rank". This twist also gives you scope for more skins to your different vehicle classes depending on your rank.

You can either find a custom (unranked) game with deep options to suit your liking, from which the only downside is there's no rank progressing. Where as then you have ranked which holds on an automatic server with a "vote to skip" option on a selected track which if it passes, it will choose another track. Of course ranked means there is rank progression. Although because of rank progression, there is no score tracking on leader boards aside one game mode (Time Attack). One feature which is surprisingly done really well is match making, I haven't found one race where I was racing an opponent more than one whole rank more than me.

There isn't really any variation to the game modes except straight up races and Eliminator. Eliminator is basically a continuous race where by every 30 seconds, last place gets eliminated from the race and eventually there'll be two vehicles left with the last remaining vehicle to be the winner. A third game mode is Time Attack where rank progression is disabled and score tracking is enabled. Not only are your trying to beat everyone's track records but also the developers times themselves.

Pacific Rift also has alot of dedication going for it, for a limited time only on the Playstation Store, you can actually download completely free of charge skins to decorate your vehicles with and of course different driver costumes to mess around with. Not only that, but Motorstorm developers have also released two Track Packs on the Playstation Store available for download. These two packs consist of three tracks a piece for £4.79-$7.00. That all adds up to 22 tracks in total (inc. the original tracks)!

My biggest gripe with the game, was the fact that the game's focus was entertainment and sheer fun. But in the end, it just wore thin, although playing it with friends was a blast, I don't think you'll be doing that every time you play Motorstorm. In fact the Festivals were a "been there done that" situation despite its somewhat unique personality to it. The online was great fun but straight up races and one or two other game modes didn't really do the whole package for me. But it's not all shame, Pacific Rift despite not offering quantity offers quality and that's the case in this sequel.

Pros
+ All 16 tracks are intracitely designed.
+ Creators listened and spoke everything wanted from it.
+ Fantastic seismic crashes and soundtrack.
+ Perfectly designed and polished gameplay.
+ Possibly the best graphics of this generation.
+ Tons of extras and incentive to play through the game.

Cons
- Little content makes the package feel slender.  
- Only three game modes.
- Shouldn't have been a 16+ game.

Pacific Rift has to be one of the most advanced stellar sequels, top notch in every core mechanic in game play, graphics and sound. It's just a shame that the game doesn't leave you coming back for more. Despite this, whatever path you take, Pacific Rift offers enjoyment and thrills around every corner you par take. If you're just looking to change tracks from Simulation Racing or Street Racing. Look no further, this is the ultimate off roading experience!