MotorStorm 2

MotorStorm was a sweaty, dirty game. Outside of Call of Duty 4, Sony’s console-exclusive off-road racer was the number one reason to stay online. It was a hard and unforgiving bastard too. MotorStorm was also buggy and flakey. Load times would wind you up long before the occasional random collisions sent your car spinning through the air in tiny pieces, in lovingly realised cutscenes that made Burnout blush. They couldn’t be skipped. You got angry.

There’s room for improvement, which is good as it means MotorStorm 2 won’t just be a replay of the first game on a new set of tracks. Far from it. MotorStorm 2 is the sequel equivalent of a Swedish massage, the developer’s hands have spent the last 18 months thumbing out all thelittle issuesand glitches that made MotorStorm a pain to play, then lathering up the results with a glamorous setting, new vehicles and a surprisingly deep destructible environment.

“We listen to gamers all the time, we trawl forums for opinions and we read every mail sent to us.” Says Nigel Kershaw, Game Director at Evolution, before describing the ideas process of approaching the sequel. “Our philosophy is to look at what people are saying in order to validate the ideas we’ve had as professional developers.”

Let’s start with that island. The new tropical world makes the dirt and dust of MotorStorm’s Monument Valley a distant memory and will offer some surprisingly original tactical treats for fans of arcade racing. Like most tropical paradises, MotorStorm 2’s island is a South Pacific volcanic burp, a stretch of land thrown up eons ago by nature’s gas. The result is a landmass with a variety of terrain. The northern area features a mountain range that leads to the dormant volcano -you can expect gravel and loose rock here -as well as the promise of snow at the Volcano’s peak. Going north, you visit a small community. South is a bay area and beach.Heading inland leads to the game’s jungle and swamps.

Best though, are the open stretches of beach that should offer multiple ways to race, with the soft sand and crashing waves tempting racers down different paths. What this island offers over the original MotorStorm is a variety of environments to race in. Water will be key, as your vehicle will overheat if you pump the nitro for too long, but splashing through deep water in the swamp or the crashing waves on the beach will cool the engine. It will likely come at a price though, taking you off the faster racing line. But if implemented properly, using water to cool your overheated engine could result in a Burnout-style constant nitro, encouraging racers to explore dangerous waters in order to stay ahead of the pack.

CATEGORIES
Ian Dean

Imagine FX and Creative Bloq editor Ian Dean is an expert on all things digital arts. Formerly the editor of Official PlayStation Magazine, PLAY Magazine, 3D World, XMB, X360, and PlayStation World, he’s no stranger to gaming, either. He’ll happily debate you for hours over the virtues of Days Gone, then settle the argument on the pitch over a game of PES (pausing frequently while he cooks a roast dinner in the background). Just don’t call it eFootball, or it might bring tears to his eyes for the ISS glory days on PS1. 

Latest in Racing
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
Nintendo knows you're waiting for Mario Kart 9, but it still wants you to run a million laps in Mario Kart 8 first
Wheel World
The spirit of Burnout Paradise lives on in this fabulous bicycle racing game from the makers of my favorite indie fighting game – a true Steam Next Fest gem
Sonic Racing CrossWorlds
Sonic Racing CrossWorlds announcement trailer proves Sega is coming for Mario Kart 9's throne with transforming cars and a closed beta this month
Need For Speed Unbound
The Need For Speed series is pumping the brakes as "Criterion are joining their colleagues working on Battlefield" instead of tuning more cars
Forza Horizon 5 the real deal reasonably priced car seasonal championship volvo 850 R racing
Forza Horizon 5 is the latest Xbox game to make the leap to PS5, and it's launching this spring with all of the same content and DLC
Tokyo Xtreme Racer
Cult classic racing series returns 18 years after its once-final entry on Xbox 360 to 95% overwhelmingly positive Steam reviews
Latest in Features
The Punisher holding two machine guns in the rain
Daredevil: Born Again - Learn the bullet-riddled comic book history of the Punisher before he officially joins the MCU
A woman in a underwater machine waving during the cinematic teaser for Subnautica 2.
Subnautica 2: Everything we know about the new underwater survival game
The AMD Ryzen 7 8700G being held above a motherboard by a reviewer
AMD's pro-consumer 9070 strategies are exactly why it's primed to dominate the CPU market in 2025
Assassin's Creed Shadows cinematic screenshot
Assassin's Creed Shadows' transmog looks set to combine the best of Odyssey and Vahalla to make changing my drip easier than ever
Split Fiction screenshot of Zoe and Mio in a fantasy world
Split Fiction feels like a Mass Effect-meets-Fable platformer and I'm obsessed with it after just one hour
Monster Hunter Wilds characters share a meal
Oh no, Monster Hunter Wilds is so good that I'm already counting the days until its inevitable Master Rank expansion