Reviews// Motorstorm: Apocalypse

I'm not going to say Motorstorm: Pacific Rift (reviewed here by me) was five percent off perfect. Any such claim will be self-evident to anyone who ever played it and a wasted entreaty to those too stupid or obdurate to have done so.

But Motorstorm: Pacific Rift was as near as damn it a perfect game. OK, I lied, and I did said it. And it feels pretty damned good to have done so. It featured superbly designed tracks, awesome vehicles, a soundtrack that was totally off the hook and a four-player split screen mode that was a time thief of the very highest order.

The dynamics of the modern video game publishing business model requires that every successful game must perforce have a sequel. Every very successful game must transmute into a franchise. The problem with this is that no one knows if the first game in any potential series will be a success - many great games have been dismal commercial failures; many stinkers have prevailed – so, in order to increase the chances of making the grade, developers tend to pre-load first outings with all their best ideas. All too often this leads to a sophomore slump, as the subsequent games in the series rearrange the furniture in a way that will hopefully entice you back into the room.

New Cheap Tat
Not Motorstorm: Apocalypse, though - If we are to stick with the already swiftly tiring metaphor - Evolution Studios have had a massive bonfire in the back garden and burnt all the old furniture, then they went to Ikea with a brand new credit card and maxxed it out on new, cheap tat.

So, when we walk into the new game, while the overall architecture is similar, the ambiance is completely different. They have fucked with perfection; always a dangerous gambit.

"How?" I at this point hope you might ask, because I have prepared a list.

1. Developer, Evolution, has added a storyline to the game.

OK, it's not a very long list, but then, neither is it particularly comprehensive. But I think it gets down to the nub of the matter.

Stories in video games are typically irrelevant. Video games producers do not wish to believe this because they like to imagine that they are movie producers, supplying the audience not with "games" but instead with "interactive entertainment experiences". This is horsecrap.

Put something on screen and we will shoot at it. We do not need to know why! If it moves, it's a target. Put a steering wheel in front of us and we will endeavour to get from here to B in the least possible time. Make it so we can bomb, shoot or ram other vehicles and we will endeavour to get from A to there while causing the maximum possible carnage. See. We don't need motivation and immersion.

Story? Borey
But Evolution has fallen into the same trap as most other publishers, and unlike the previous Motorstorm games, have hung progress through Apocalypse on a storyline.

The storyline goes like this… nope, sorry, couldn't be bothered to pay attention through the tedious cut-scenes and intros and neither will you be able to. I just sat there pressing X until a race started. I mean it JUST DOESN'T MATTER if the city is falling prey to the largest mega-quake in history. It's just a pretext, to slap stupid and dramatic landscape deformation events into the tracks. And when they happen, you are given the chance to press triangle and zoom-focus in on them in glorious 3D. This gets old and tired after, oooh, approximately once.

The fact is that instead of being set in and on the towering majesty of the mesas of Arizona's monument valley, or in the sweaty dankness/fiery splendour of some volcanic rainforest island, Apocalypse is set in the random drabness of some big city. New San Francisgeles, let's say.