When Sony’s PlayStation 3 launched back in November 2006, I remember stepping up to a demo station in a local Best Buy and playing one of the launch titles in the form of a MotorStorm demo thinking, wow, this is what the next generations looks like. Awesome! Five years later and in its third iteration MotorStorm is back. The latest title from Evolution is titled Apocalypse and couldn’t be more fitting with the theme of the game. Apocalypse is set in a fictional city that resembles San Francisco in a rather crumbling state.
Typically MotoStorm games are full of over the top off road racing with slick graphics, boosting and massive crashes, Apocalypse is no different. Evolution’s latest has a different kind of off road racing to offer its fans. In Apocalypse players will be taking their seriously modified racing machines across beautifully crumbling city environments that won’t only have players avoid falling cranes, buildings or bridges, but also see them jump from rooftop to rooftop and through top floors of office buildings. Evolution has done a fantastic job rendering the city which is falling apart during races, modifying the tracks during events and opening new paths, which is reminiscent of Split/Second.
The main mode of MotorStorm Apocalypse is called ‘Festival’ and will have players take on different characters utilizing an array of vehicles to race against other drivers and the, sometimes frustratingly, challenging environments. While mad dashing through some of the coolest tracks in today’s racing games, players will need to avoid lots of debris and falling buildings which looks fantastic and has some jaw dropping moments the first time through. As noted before, tracks will be modified permanently and create some new routes to spice up the action. Knowing your course is highly important to succeeding in Apocalypse as more often than not some cheap crashes can quickly end your chances for a victory.
While the AI is rather lax in the early stages with some serious rubber-banding, the races become more fun and difficult in the deeper progression of the story. Oh yeah, there is a story in MotorStorm, which took a few nods from within the Sony family. Apocalypse’s story is told via animated motion comics that remind a lot of inFamous’ way of portraying the plot. Sure, we know that there is some reason for why the city is crumbling and some folks avoided the evacuation to race in the destroyed city, but it won’t be integral to how much fun players will have in MotoStorm.
The racing action in this excellent driving game is what we have come to expect from the guys at Evolution. For the most part Apocalypse is blessed with crisp and smooth controls that gets a bit lost with the motorcycles but makes for an otherwise very entertaining and sometimes nail biting experience. MotorStorm has a rock solid frame rate that never chugs or stutters, even during some of the massive events during races.
A few changes have been made to the boost mechanic; the nitro charge can now be cooled down during long jumps, if players lay off the throttle while being airborne. This works especially well when you need to get to the front quickly and managing the boost can become more important than ever. I was not able to test any of the multiplayer experience during my review since the PlayStation network has been down for several days but fear not MotoStormers! Apocalypse has a split-screen mode which allows you and your friends to have some good old couch competition that should make for some serious arguments and fist-pumps alike!
When I first started playing MotorStorm Apocalypse I thought to myself, will I really enjoy another game like this or have we had enough? Turns out that the answer is, I totally enjoyed it. Evolution has made enough changes to their beloved franchise that it remains relevant and important to the racing genre. Apocalypse takes gamers into a creative, fun and unique environment while keeping the core values of a MotorStorm game intact and delivering a solid racing game that any PlayStation 3 owner should experience.
Score: 8.5 / 10
MotorStorm Apocalypse was developed by Evolution Studios and published by Sony for PS3 on May 3rd. A copy of the game was provided to us by Sony for reviewing purposes.
