MotorStorm Apocalypse Review

Reviewed by JOHN SPANGLER "Johnny Spang"

Yeah. I agree, this is a show of power for the PS3, but don't let the great graphics be the only part of the greatness, the game is a blast! More of a visual showcase than most racing games, this Motorstorm struts out some fun racing in the process. The tracks are huge, fun and easy for beginners to get into. Mind you the difficulty gets serious later on and like many people have said on here, it can get frustrating. Youngsters will probably not want to play it for long, but if you have patience, this game is an absolute blast. Just don't let the cheating A.I. ruin the game for you. Hopefully a patch will be administered in the near future when Sony gets their network sorted out.

Reviewed by PyroDark "Incendiary"

If you had your previous Motorstorm games boxed up and ready for GameStop at the arrival of this new more advanced game, I advise you hold on to them, Still get this!, but keep the old ones.

Just like the switch from Monument Valley to Pacific Rift, the driving feel has been tweaked a little from what veterans of the previous title are used to. This is not just the old PR engine cut and pasted into an concrete jungle, the driving will take a little getting used to, and at first I was not impressed. It is possible to get used to it though, and you'll be flying around tracks faster and more effectively then you ever were in PR after a little practice. In fact I actually used to hate rally cars, now I can control them better, I guess they are a little less...randomly floaty? It's likely the handling is off a bit from PR becuase of the new perks system in which you race online to earn more then just rank, you earn vehicle upgrades both mechanical and cosmetic. In fact online IS the game now, and Single-Player Festival can be completely ignored as it does not unlock anything! (except a few extras about the new motion comic storyline and an even harder difficulty).
For me it wasn't really worth nearly ripping my controller in half just to face the cheap and cheaper AI, whose primary goal was not that they'll win, but that you won't. They constantly slam you, "accidentally" bump your back tire, or in some way destabilize you to run into something, sometimes [by the veteran class] even teaming up to "accidentally" knock you out. You would have thought the city falling down around you would be challenge enough, I felt that the cheap AI was annoying and unnecessary. I also could have done without the stupid rebels (peds) that throw molotovs and shoot machine guns and rockets at you, overheating you and then grab on to you car when you go by.

-Tracks-
If you want to play the circuits without other people distracting you or without the track interactively rising and falling around you, there is still a time trial mode with all the circuit tracks from festival unlocked from the start. A few tracks from the festival are not present in that mode simply becuase they don't loop (Such as the first city track people saw in the preview video from E3 2010). There are 8 track regions based on areas from San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Fransisco and each region has about 3 circuit routes taking place at different times in the destruction. The routes laid out are a mix of awesome and terrible. If you remember getting lost in some of the Pacific Rift tracks, prepare to get even more lost here, sometimes more than others. They did their best at laying out road flares and motion arrow signs where you need them, but sometimes it gets lost in the smoke and dust clouds and you drive through to find yourself moments from a wall or barrier. The "Interstate" tracks were the most confusing. I found myself following the "road" too often, rather then knowing when to cut across and there's jersey walls and slim immovable poles all over that can easily be overlooked and slammed into amidst all the texture blending together and coming at you at once. You just need to run the courses in Time Trial a few laps to learn the correct paths, learn what not to hit, what's breakable and what's concreted in place, and to learn all the possible shortcuts of which their are MANY, I'd say at least 3 different ways to go at every turn. A good tip in this motorstorm is to head for the ramps, even if you don't need to get up anywhere, getting air and releasing the accelerator and nitro at the same time on the way back to the ground does wonders for engine cooling now, as well as water which there is plenty of gushing out of the broken water mains and pooling in all the newly created crevices in the streets.
I'd say my favorite region is Skyline. Jumping across skyscrapers and through offices reminds me of my favorite levels from the Twisted Metals, except they never did rooftops this well. It's even more awesome when buildings are just falling left and right, you just feel like OMG WTF am I doing on these rooftops? Craziness (more so cause I usually use Big-Rigs or Monster-Trucks).

-Vehicles-
To travel these routes there are now 13 classes of vehicles to choose from. At first I thought that was way lame that there are only 3 cars for each class (not including DLC) and 2 of each are locked from the start, but now that I've tried to use all the classes I see that that's plenty. The classes are now: Dirt-bikes, ATVs, Super-bikes(Sport bikes), Choppers, Buggies, Rally Cars, Super-Minis(Hatch-backs), Muscle Cars, Super Cars(Exotics), Racing Trucks, Mudpluggers, Big Rigs, and Monster Trucks. While I was bummed most of my favorites from the last two games didn't make it over, I think I can definitely make due with what's here. What's more is you can customize them a little now.
First off, it is NOT like Midnight Club in depth so don't get overexcited about that, but it's very decent for a motorstorm game. They made sure to give you just enough to make sure your car is noticeably different from others online (or offline, you can also use them in Single Race and Time Trial). I was just happy to finally color my vehicle a normal color and get all the vinyls off. The Livery system offers a bunch of 1, 2, and 3 color full-body vinyls. I felt most of them were a little too "busy" in their designs, many of them tend to just clutter your car with detail, but there are good simpler ones too, as well as an option to just Remove.
There are enough options unlocked from the start for you to spend some time in the customizer just getting your colors right, and there are seriously a TON of vinyls, stickers, and parts to unlock via online.

-ONLINE-
I find Online to be more fun this time around, because of all you can unlock, and the fact that you can gain points for more than just where you place. That's great for me, since I'm usually happy coming in somewhere around the middle of the grid, so I don't have to kill myself with the stress of having to place high or lose points. Since the whole game is in the Online mode, they have adapted it to not simply take points when you lose, you just don't get as much. They also have increased the amount of time before DNF after the 1st racer crosses the line to 60 seconds rather then 30, so more can actually finish.

Besides your finishing position, you also gain points for Drifting, Air-time, Completing a Race (not rage-quitting) and wrecking opponents by use of the boost nudge (which is probably why people rage-quit). I wasn't too happy that the game RELIES on messing up other racers in order to get ahead, but it only unlocks some parts, new cars will still unlock even if you never wreck people.
To unlock all the, let's say Big-Rigs, you have to compete in races using the Rig that is unlocked, so no more whole packages of cars all at once. Another added feature is betting against other racers, which is why points are called "(poker) chips". I'm not a gambler so I haven't used it, but I can say someone almost always bets against me, and I almost always win that bet by the end = free chips for me :)

Apocalypse also introduces a new "Perks" system which is sort of like attaching 3 enhancements to all your vehicles. For example the ones I have allow me to:
1.) Reset faster after a crash
2.) Cool down in the air with the accelerator down (becuase I often forget to release it)
3.) Resist getting boost nudged, becuase even though I don't like to be an ass online, plenty of people have no problem running you down, remember it's actually ENCOURAGED to progress faster. I think the thing I'm most disappointed with in Online play is the host still has the option to dis-include certain car classes from a race. So it's a little hard to level up a particular class when it's always left out, and it's also good to practice a little with everything, you never know when a class you never use will end up the only one allowed and your just out of luck there.

I spent my whole first day simply trying to visit all the circuits in via time trial mode, and utilizing the customization options, Just that is a lot to take in. Just for what I did offline without the earth shaking was awesome fun but at the same time there is an off element to the ruined city in offline mode that monument valley also had, but Pacific Rift did not share. At the end of the day, when the adrenaline has run dry, you kind of want to go home. As in you would not want to just hang out in a destroyed ever-collapsing city as it falls into the Pacific, anymore then you would want to hang out in the middle of an arid Arizona desert well exceeding 100-degrees.
However Pacific Rift's Hawaiian paradise environment was beautiful, I could roam the lush jungles, passing water falls and lava-flows forever, alone or with friends. It's like it felt more inviting but at the same time deadly, whereas the same bland broken concrete rubble textures gets a little old after awhile. They did a spectacular job of thinking out how a city would break and making it look right, but you just NEED to be going too fast and be too focused on the epic race to get full enjoyment out of this setting.

However it is you prefer to play there is plenty of replay here, I'd say this should be high on every race fan's list of games to get this year.