Reviews// Motorstorm RC

Motorstorm RC is gaming crack in the palm of your hand. You’ll pick it up for the first time, play it for a few hours and think it’s pretty cool. You’ll then put it down, probably expecting never to play this £5 downloadable game again unless granny’s taken over the telly and started watching Heartbeat over Christmas. But Evolution Studios knows. It knows.

You’ll come back. You always do. Just like the others. One more fix, you’ll say. Just one more Hot Lap. They know you’re good for it. You just have to beat your mate Jimmy’s record one last time. But then he’ll ding you on that track that you thought you were really good at, just as you’re about to leave the house to go to work. That unemployed little shit. Doesn’t he know you have a life!? How much time and effort must go into racing around that tiny Micro Machines-esque course just to shave a millisecond of your time? Has he no heart!?

Well, you know what? Put that PlayStation Vita down. It’s not Jimmy’s fault. He’s an addict, too. It’s Evolution Studios’ fault for making an insanely playable game - and in the process, rediscovering what the Motorstorm franchise is all about.

We’ve all played Motorstorm Apocalypse, and we all recognise that it didn’t exactly live up to what the previous games in the racing series has stood for - straightforward, tropical multiplayer mayhem in massive trucks. While some may initially baulk at this bitesize spin-off, one play session will make you realise just how engaging this game is.

As you would expect, the clue behind the core philosophy of Motorstorm RC is in the title. Using the left analogue stick to steer and the right analogue stick to adjust the acceleration and brake, this isometric 3D racer takes a lot of inspiration from remote-controlled model cars. Starting the game lands you in an area called The Playground, which introduces you to the controls and lets you faff about in basketball courts and half pipes at your leisure. With a drum-and-bass mixtape looping in the background and a graffiti-style presentation, Evolution is really playing on 1980s childhood here.

The list of tracks you can race in look like a ‘best of’ compilation of the Motorstorm franchise. Challenges are contained within ‘Festivals’ that cover the three major PlayStation 3 releases (Motorstorm, Pacific Rift and Apocalypse) and the PSP offshoot Arctic Edge. 12 challenges offer the chance to earn 36 medals (in a Bronze, Silver, Gold fashion), and eight different kinds of model car can be unlocked for your use around the dirt tracks, each handling very differently to one another.

Challenges are varied and addictive to play, and range from standard races against CPU opponents to time trials, overtaking missions and drifting sessions. And once you’re done with one track, the game’s seamless presentation allows you to jump from menu to menu in an instant without any loading times.

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to handle a car in Motorstorm RC, all you need to think about is the aforementioned remote-controlled model car. Using the twin sticks, it feels almost exactly the same, and each car reacts as you’d expect it to. While the standard challenges are great ways to pass the time on the train (or in the house), perhaps the game’s killer app is in a feature called the Pitwall.

And here’s where we come back to the aforementioned game crack. After connecting to PlayStation Network, every time and score you’ve made will get uploaded to the online leaderboards. However, whenever a PSN user beats your time - be it friend, foe or random - you’re notified in the top corner of the screen, and almost goaded into besting them in retaliation. After all, you spent half an hour of non-stop Hot Laps to get the time you logged. How dare some upstart come by and take your #1 title?

The only thing Motorstorm RC doesn’t do is offer a direct multiplayer mode on the PlayStation Vita. Your interaction with other players is more indirect, watching their ghosts race around the track and burst ahead in an impossible fashion as you try to impotently putter your way around the tight corners and narrow straights. Anything less than perfect makes you feel inadequate, to the point where you shout obscenities at the top of your voice in jubilation as you finally beat your best mate by a second and a half.

As an awesome bonus, you two versions of Motorstorm RC when you buy it from the PlayStation Store - the twin-stick, portable PlayStation Vita edition and a home console edition to download onto your PlayStation 3. Save games are automatically uploaded to the cloud and synced between console and handheld. So effectively, Evolution Studios is trying to take control of your entire life. There is no escape from the addictive nature of Motorstorm RC. None!

The PlayStation 3 version is exactly the same as the Vita one, with the only difference being in the game’s default control scheme. Rather than using the right analogue stick for acceleration and braking, you’re instead expected to use the L2 and R2 triggers from the start. You can, of course, change it back.

You’ll spend the majority of your time tackling Pitwall challenges on the road though, rather than with a DualShock 3 in your hand. The PS3 version of Motorstorm RC, as great as it is, really does feel like the companion app to the Vita version, rather than the other way around as you might expect.

There’s just an incredible element of suspense and compelling gameplay that draws you closer to the action on Vita, in ways that simply can’t be replicated on a home console. This is the racing equivalent of Tetris - and extremely good value for money. If you’ve got a Vita, you need this game.

Pros:
+ Addictive gameplay
+ Great controls, accessible to all
+ Re-captures the Motorstorm feel

Cons:
- Drifts are a bit finicky to pull off
- Internet connection requirement can impact on-the-road experience without 3G Vita
- No multiplayer function on Vita

SPOnG Score: 9/10