Taking a destructive urban environment and adding dramatic set-pieces, a three-tier single-player story mode, an ongoing civil war between renegades, a betting system for online play and – my favourite bit – support for online play with four local players in split-screen means this new entry into the PlayStation 3 racer is an astonishing improvement over the addictive Pacific Rift.
SPOnG was there when the curtain was officially unveiled on Motorstorm Apocalypse, and sat down with lead designer Paul Rustchynsky to talk about all of the new modes in the game – including the ability for users to create their own ones. Everything from AI balancing to 3D is covered, so dive in and read on...
SPOnG: First off, let's talk about the departure Motorstorm Apocalypse has made from previous iterations. The urban racing genre seems to be coming back in full force, with Split/Second and Blur this year along with Burnout Paradise a couple of years back. How do you think this game differentiates itself from those other titles?
Paul Rustchynsky: I think what we're doing is bringing our unique brand of off-road racing into the urban environment. These aren't your typical sorts of cities with smooth streets, block-based layouts with 90-degree corners to go around. We're really using the destruction as a tool to basically sculpt the environment to create unique and interesting tracks that nobody has seen before.
You mentioned other games that are based in a city, but how many of those let you race on top of skyscrapers, jumping from building to building, and through office blocks as these structures collapse around you?
SPOnG: Speaking of Split/Second, because that has a few parallels in its destruction-based racing – if one criticism had to be made against it, it would be that the scripted nature of the environment would soon get boring for the player to race over and over again. Is there a danger of that happening in Motorstorm Apocalypse?
Paul Rustchynsky: We're fully aware of that danger, because of the nature of the scripted events that we have in the game. So what we've done in the Festival experience, is that you never play the same race twice. There are 40-plus races across these three playable characters, and you'll race in similar environments but you'll never see the same tracks or the same events twice, ever. So it's fresh the whole way through.
SPOnG: Does that extend to the multiplayer? Is there a Festival mode in the online or split-screen gameplay?
Paul Rustchynsky: There isn't a Festival mode specifically, in the online side. You will be able to play every single race that appears in the Festival, and you'll potentially be able to play around with those using the Event Editor.
SPOnG: I noticed there's a second control scheme in the demo I played called 'New'. What's the thinking behind that?
Paul Rustchynsky: Well, that's just for the purposes of the E3 demo, because obviously this is E3 code at the moment and we'll be refining this over time. The 'New' control scheme will be the default one, but we wanted to make sure that traditional fans could come along and enjoy the demo in the classic scheme too.
So this new control scheme will be the default, but there will be about five or six configurations to choose from in the final game. Between this and the classic control scheme, I prefer the new one. It's much more comfortable – because what we've done is put the combat onto the face buttons, so you've got the ability to ram left and right on the Square and Circle buttons. It's a quick nudge from the boost button to the ram attack, and of course ramming uses your boost so it all ties in together and makes things a lot easier to access.
We're trying to integrate the combat a little more into the game, especially with the bigger vehicles and the impact it will have when you combine a number of Perks in your online game. With the addition of Perks, you can really smash those other vehicles about.
SPOnG: You led me nicely onto the Perks there, actually. How will that pan out in terms of matchmaking? Games like Blur have a level structure, does Motorstorm Apocalypse have something similar to avoid players getting matched with opponents way above their skill level?
Paul Rustchynsky: There's always a risk when you introduce Perks, and you have those tied to a ranking system that – you'll get online and just be matched with all these great players that will always beat you. What we're trying to do is introduce a few mechanics in there which will help out the players who are struggling. We have a system in place so that the more you crash and the worse you do, you'll get a Perk to give you a bit of a helping hand. If you do worse than others, you'll get better Perks.
It gives them a chance to match the ability of those who have unlocked everything, and know the tracks inside out. Of course our ranking system will have full matchmaking, so we'll try and pair people up with opponents of appropriate skill levels.
We also do some form calculations as well. It's not just your rank that the game takes into account, because rank is more about experience and sometimes it's about the amount of time you've put into a game. So we try and calculate how well you've played over the last ten or twenty races, and then pair you up against similar people. [continues]
Don't forget to read our MotorStorm 3 first look feature.