Before I get to MotorStorm I want to talk about Evolution Studios the developer behind this series and the games leading up to MotorStorm. Evolution was a British developer that formed in 1999. They got cracking on a rally game demo that caught Sony’s eye which leads to them putting out a PS2 World Rally Championship (WRC) game every year from 2001 until 2005.

These WRC games are great. I spent a bit of time with each one before going into MotorStorm and they impressed from the very first title. It was clear these developers had passion and an eye for detail. The first WRC game is a great representation and celebration of rally. There are a lot of short movies and explanations to give context even for those completely new to rally with zero knowledge. It has a first person cockpit view, great replays and little details like the brakes glowing from heavy braking and dirt building up on the car throughout the stage. They then took this solid foundation and refined and built upon it every year.

By the time we get to the later entries there was just such a massive improvement and they solved the issue of lacking content and variety by adding Super 1600, concept, extreme, historic and online play. The final WRC entry from Evolution is so good. It looks excellent. The backgrounds are detailed and so are the cars, with great visual damage. There are so many little things that make this one special, like weather that changes during the stage, crowds that jump out the way and leaves swirling in the air. There is a really good and accurately reactive co driver and random events like animals crossing the track, burst water pipes, rock falls and other cars crashing or breaking down ahead. The car handling is some of the best of that era too and it is still a ton of fun to play today.

If you are a fan of racing games, especially rally games, then don’t sleep on the PS2 WRC titles. I would recommend picking up at least the last one, WRC Rally Evolved, because it is genuinely one of the best racing games. I probably should have written a review just for it before this. Since their inception Evolution Studios worked on dirt, mud, off road handling and vehicle destruction. It is no surprise that they were very ready and had the expertise to start their own off road racing series.

MotorStorm was the very first PS3 game I ever played. The PS3 released in early 2007 for Australia and MotorStorm was a launch title. I couldn’t get a PS3 right away, those beasts were bloody expensive. If you adjust for inflation they were more expensive than the PS5 Pro even with the separate disc drive and stand added on. Luckily a store near me had a PS3 demo kiosk. I went out of my way multiple times to go there just for more MotorStorm. It was love at first sight. I was blown away and sadly this is something that just doesn’t happen anymore with the technological leap from one generation to the next becoming less and less impressive. Fortunately The PS3 started getting price cuts and I was eventually able to grab one. MotorStorm was one of first games I picked up and it had no problem living up to the promise shown in the demo I played.

Starting up MotorStorm and jumping into my first race after having not played it for many years put the biggest, stupidest grin on my face. The opening movie and main menu is awesome. The whole game has this raw energy, immediacy and is instantly likable. Even the case is great inside and out, with a fitting manual too. Being set in Monument Valley in this over the top, off road racing festival was such a good idea and makes the game very cohesive. There was a clear concept and attitude here and they really went for it. There are plenty of small details that add up to create MotorStorm’s look and vibe. There are the little messages on loading screens, the designs on riders and vehicles, the way music has an effect making it sound live and there are little crowds watching from crazy locations on track. While there isn’t weather like rain, storms or snow races do take place at different times of the day and a lot is done with light and shadows. Races in the middle of the day can be harsh with the environments looking sun scorched. Races at night under the stars or even just when it is really cloudy have a different vibe. When it is near sunset or sunrise it can be a bit moody and at times really picturesque.

It is a brutal, beautiful game. Mud, dirt, dust and off road carnage had never looked this good. The tracks are littered with destructible objects that can be knocked around and the track itself even gets torn up. As the vehicles tear through they make tracks in the mud which alters the terrain just a bit for the next lap. The mud flicks up and sticks to vehicles as well. The vehicles are highly destructible and can fall apart and look really mangled. The crashes are awesome as it cuts to a slow mo crash cam and lowers the music, focusing in on the chaos. Watching the ATV and bikes crash is particularly funny as the rider is savagely ragdolled. It was such a good looking and impressive game in its time and still looks good now. It had the sound to match as well with loud powerful vehicles that crunched into each other or parts of the course. All this going on while bands like slipknot, Pendulum and Queens of the Stone Age are blasting in the background too.

MotorStorm doesn’t just have the presentation, style and energy it plays well too. The handling and physics are done really well here. The rough courses throw the vehicles around. You feel every bump and the differences between surfaces. Getting hit by another racer can push you sideways or straight up destroy you. Jumps are very big but not super ridiculous like what you will find in Excite Truck. Landings aren’t always going to go smoothly even with the ability to have some control over your vehicle in the air. The different types of vehicles behave differently. Rally cars are fast but prefer flat surfaces, bikes and ATVs handle jumps and higher, narrower paths better and the bigger trucks can plough through mud. Vehicles behave as you would expect but it is not at all a sim. There is a level of forgiveness and durability here and it is fairly well balanced too. They have done an excellent job of striking a middle ground between being fun but still grounded. It has pick up and play approachability but in the end rewards skill, practice and consistency. My only complaint is that the vehicles, particularly the bigger ones, could have felt a little heavier.

The tracks are superbly designed for this type of game and compliment the vehicle variety. They have multiple paths and the path you want to take will depend on what you are driving. So you’ll always need to fight to stay on the right line. How you drive will also depend on what you’re driving and what the other racers around you are driving. Smashing your way through in a big rig is great but that won’t work on a bike. When on a bike or ATV you can swing punches at other nearby riders. Rally cars are fast and like to slide but can get bullied. Your approach really changes depending on what you’re in and mastering every vehicle type, for every track too, is required to do well. The game forces you to by usually restricting your choice in each event. You’ll want to have plenty of goes in everything anyway because they are all fun and have their own strengths and weaknesses. The AI is well suited to all this and is enjoyable to race against. The other vehicles will typically try to do what is best for each vehicle. They can be aggressive too and will ram, throw punches, taunt you and keep up with you while never crossing over into being frustrating. They nailed the number per race as well with enough opponents on track to create fun chaos without it ever getting too messy too often. The only problem is that it is maybe slightly too easy to win for too much of the game.

The boost mechanic is also well implemented. If you use it too much you’ll explode which can actually be used to your advantage right at the finish line. You need to be strategic with it to maximise speed and so it cools down for when you need it most. The sound effect and shake that builds with holding it down is great as well. All these things together make a fun racing game full of great moments; like seeing a rider without their bike go flying over your head, mowing down a ATV in a big rig, huge t-bone impacts, clipping something and pulling off a barrel roll, stealing victory on the last corner or causing a pile up and switching the camera to look back at the carnage.

MotorStorm goes hard and is plenty of fun but unfortunately it struggles to maintain it. There is simply not enough content or variety here. There are 21 tickets in the game with each one giving you 1 to 4 races and it does not take that long to win every race. Even in this somewhat short time it gets repetitive too. Using the off road festival, Monument Valley setting is a double edged sword. The down side is that, while the tracks are good, they are similar, especially in how they look and there are only eight of them as well. There are a good number of vehicle types but within those types there isn’t much choice, difference or customisation. There is nothing to do beyond this, apart from online multiplayer, and even split screen multiplayer is absent. Despite this game being able to naturally and pretty consistently create unique moments things can start to feel a bit samey fairly quickly. Some of the races drag on too long (7 minutes plus at times) making it even worse. The same goes for the music. There are not enough songs and you’ll feel like you have heard them too often by the half way point. So I would recommend playing in short bursts which this type of game seems ideal for anyway. I have a few minor complaints as well like the lack of a proper first person driver perspective, vehicles take a little moment to load on the selection screen and there is some minor slowdown at times. I should also mention that you can use motion controls but they’re not the best for this game.

Thankfully MotorStorm did go on to become a series that added more content and variety, although there are other problems with the sequels. If you haven’t guessed already I am going to be revisiting the sequel Motorstorm: Pacific Rift next and I plan to go play through the rest including Driveclub after that. Evolution studios were onto a winner here right from the start though. Motorstorm is the perfect game to throw on when you have around 30 minutes to an hour to blast through some races. It is such a great early PS3 title even if it does come up short in content and variety. It was amazing back then and still fun to return to now. A must play for any PS3 owning racing game fan.

8.0/10