Reviews// MotorStorm (PAL PS3)

Pretty much every track in Motor Storm has several routes that you can take. Typically the higher routes are harder, drier, and often narrower. The lower routes are more often rocky or muddy. So the route you choose will depend on what you are driving - or at least it will if you are smart. Of course, the first time you drive a given track, you don't know which routes are best suited to your vehicle, or your own particular driving style. So, at first you might be advised to hang back a little and see where other vehicles similar to the one you are driving go, and follow them. But it's not completely cut and dried; if you are particularly adept at drifting, or handbrake turning, you might find that you can succeed on a route made for another vehicle. So, you really have to get to know these tracks to win on them. And you certainly get to know the tracks because one of the game’s weaknesses is the small number of tracks it has on offer, and the playability of them is not extended by using that old favourite - racing them in reverse direction - because they are designed in such a way (with huge jumps and towering precipices) that they simply cannot be run backward.

So, the game consists, largely of racing the same track time and again with different vehicles. And, while more tracks would have been appreciated, this is not as boring as it at first sounds because each new vehicle demands a new route around the track. There are several versions of each vehicle type, but the screen on which you choose them gives no indication what, apart from their visual aspects, differentiates them.

Sure, when you drive them, some seem faster, some seem to accelerate better, some seem to fill the boost gauge less quickly - but no indication of these characteristics is given on the screen where you choose the vehicle... this seems like a hit-and-missy way of lengthening the game's lifespan because often you'll have to try out several vehicles of the same type, on the same track, to achieve a victory.

As you progress further into the game, the task of finishing in the top three positions or in first place (to complete all the race tickets) becomes progressively more difficult. Not because newer and more difficult tracks are introduced - you get to see all the tracks in the first few race tickets - but because the computer-controlled drivers become more aggressive, erratic and illogical in their driving. This is Motor Storm's most annoying characteristic, and its greatest weakness.

Unlike other driving games (Gran Turismo, or Burnout for instance) where, as you progress, the computer drivers simply become faster and more skilful, in Motor Storm, they merely become more psychotic. Instead of attempting to beat you, they simply attempt to ram you out of the way, or jostle you into some obstacle. It's not big, and it's not clever, and it can result in you being ejected unceremoniously from a first place you have held onto - by careful steering, good route choice and judicious boosting for three laps - mere metres from the finish line, as some big rig takes an impossible line to total your car, and himself into the bargain.