Reviews// MotorStorm Pacific Rift

MotorStorm was the highlight of the PS3 launch line-up for me. That is to say, it was the game I played most enthusiastically for the longest time. Which says a lot about how mundane the PS3 launch line up was, because MotorStorm was remarkably unremarkable! That's not a criticism, it's just a fact.

MotorStorm was fun as all get out, and as addictive a crack cocaine on acid with a methamphetamine chaser (remember kids and adults, drugs are bad, m'kay!?), but it wasn't particularly original or innovative. And that's no crime. In fact, where popular culture is concerned, innovation and originality are likely to get you shit-canned unceremoniously, whereas endlessly repeating the predictable tedium of your predecessors will get you an Oscar or a Top-Ten hit and a three album deal.

Pacific Rift follows in its predecessor's footsteps, and me and my SPOnG colleagues have spent many, many hours playing the preview code. So, MotorStorm and Pacific Rift are two solid gold hits in my eyes, but what does Pacific Rift add to the MotorStorm mix to win my continued approbation? Well, basically, everything that makes Pacific Rift truly great can be summed up in one single phrase: Split-screen multi-player.

Sure there are one or two other welcome additions, but had Evolution simply delivered a game almost identical to MotorStorm, but with new tracks and split-screen play, I would have been happy. Indeed, when Sony sent the preview code, with a single two-player track (and two different single-player ones) we spent hundreds of hours playing the former.

The review code provides a full 16 tracks, 15 of them longer and more interesting than that preview track(s), and it also gives the possibility for four-player split-screen. I was like a pig in shit creek with a paddle and a canoe and a six pack of cold beers, and no banjo plucking locals too spoil my fun.

While I am on the subject of three album deals (which of course, I wasn't - but I was a couple of paragraphs ago, and because I later I will be likening Pacific Rift to that difficult sophomore album) let me (press) pause a while to talk about music.

Pacific Rift has a huge and diverse soundtrack, ranging from the brand new, in the case of Slipknot's Sulfur through to the 20 years old: Jesus Built My Hotrod by Ministry; Nirvana's Swap Meet (an execrable new remix here though) and beyond to David Bowie's Queen Bitch. It's an eclectic mix including the likes of Megadeth and Primal Scream before dropping a new track by, well, a name you'll probably already be familiar with. This may be missing a trick.

Video games soundtracks are an excellent way of marketing new music. My iTunes library is now bulging with tracks by artists I was barely familiar with before Burnout indelibly seared one of their tracks onto the back of my skull: Sahara Hotnights, Atreyu, Rise Against, The Ramones (just joking, me and The Ramones, we were like brothers. OK, THEY were like brothers to each other. I was like a slightly confused fan who once accused Joey Ramone of "Really fucking thinking he was Joey Ramone", luckily he thought it was funny!).

Motorstorm Pacific Rift seems less concerned with shaping the future of your iPod library, and more interested in giving you an enjoyable soundtrack to your gaming experience. The music in Pacific Rift is excellent, but a little too eclectic. Do Slipknot fans really want to hear Simian Mobile Disco or The Qemists? That criticism said, I hardy noticed the music while we're playing Pacific Rift. The roaring of the engines is much more noticeable, and you'll want to keep it that way, that tell-tale whine is an important signifier of when you are about to over boost.

OK, after writing that, I went to options, turned the music up and the sound effects down. Disaster, we were boost-exploding all over the place – I've put that back how it was and stuck (virtual) gaffer tape over that control setting!