Reviews// MotorStorm Pacific Rift

Even more redundant than new vehicles are new drivers! Different drivers simply have different clothing, and since they pretty much all wear helmets, the difference is not particularly noticeable even when they are on a motorbike or an ATV, where you get a straight on view of their back. In a more traditional metal-sided vehicle, different drivers are a complete irrelevance. But still they are in there, as a sop to those who demand new features.

Worthwhile additions to Pacific Rift are the stats screens. Containing all sorts of information vital to the anorak and the dedicated player both. Things like Boost Explosion Wins. I became obsessive, while playing the preview track, to try and explode over the line. Evolution has acknowledged this honourable pastime by keeping a record of how many times you manage to combine the Boost Explosion with a race win. There are stats for longest jump, and this game has some doozies! Longest boost - again this can be extended by careful use of the water on a track. There are a whole load of other stats too - it's trivial stuff, but fascinating at the same time.

Another addition, though I'm still struggling to come to terms with it, is the Photo Mode. At any point during a race, you can press the "Start" button to bring up the "Restart, Quit" menu, and choose Photo Mode, this takes you back into the game with a menu that shows you how to move you camera. You can pan, tilt and zoom to get the shot of your dreams, then pressing "X" drops it into your photo album!

One final addition that is the work of absolute genius is the "Reset to Track" button. While playing the preview, I became insanely angry about what the SPOnG team called “Non-Crash Crashes". These are situations in which you are shunted off the track into a tree or bunch of rocks, and you are stuck, but not wrecked.

In the early code, there was no way to get out of these incredibly frustrating situations. In the review code - there is - hitting the "Select" button jumps you back onto the track and gives you a couple of seconds of ghost mode, so you don't get instantly obliterated by a passing Big Rig.

So, Pacific Rift is guilty of feature stuffing. There has been tinkering. The furniture has been rearranged, just so Sony and Evolution can say that things have changed and not feel too embarrassed when they ask us for another £39.99. But I for one will not resent paying that, I've already had enough fun out of the preview and review versions of this game for that to work out at about 50p an hour.

Once I have a release copy playable on my home retail PS3, that's likely to come down to under 5p an hour in the coming months.

Compare that with a range of other pastimes: £2,000 to go snowboarding for two weeks, at an average of six hours on snow per day this works out at £25.64 per hour. Two hours snowboarding at a snowdome is still around £15 an hour. Watching a movie at the cinema works out about £6 an hour. Drinking beer, at the rate of 1.5 pints an hour costs around £4.50 an hour. And having sex with an escort runs to around £225 an hour. MotorStorm is more fun than any of those things except for the snowboarding and maybe the sex. 5p an hour? It's peanuts. Don't be a monkey. Buy this game!