The first few races you’ll be able to race in will take you through a few of the easiest vehicles to handle. As you place third or above in these races more “tickets” will open up with races inside them. You see the “story” of Motorstorm is that you’re attending some crazy racing competition in the desert and you gain points for each race you place in. These points accumulate and buy you more “tickets.” And yes like I said above, each ticket has more races in them. As you complete tickets, special tickets will appear that have boss type races in them. They are essentially the last ticket of a skill level. Each bunch of tickets is separated by skill level from 1 to 4. 1 and 2 are pretty easy once you get the hang of things, but you’ll be fighting for your life when it comes to 3 and especially 4.

What’s most interesting about the boss tickets is that the races inside include all vehicles in the game. Not only can you select from any vehicle but so can the competition. This leads to some of the craziest racing I’ve ever seen in a game. I love to pick the motorbike so that I can squeeze between the big rigs and narrowly avoid the rally cars. Needless to say, these races bring forth some of the most brutal and engaging crashes ever seen in a game. Thankfully you can pause the game at any time and rotate the camera around to view all the tiny parts, explosions, and drivers getting mangled into a beautifully calculated physics soup.


Buggy madness.
Then there’s the vehicle selection. Every single one is unlocked from the get go, but of course you have to choose from the ones available in your current race. There are big rigs that take a ton of damage, accelerate slow, and turn really slow. There are motorbikes that handle like a dream but take very little damage. There’s the Mud Plugger which is at about the middle of the road. The buggy feels like a motorbike but with more wheels. There’s the rally car that feels like it should be on pavement but which ultimately smokes the competition. There’s the ATV which essentially handles like the bike with a little less in the maneuverability department. And last and probably least is the racing truck that feels extremely average. What really is the kicker though is the fact that while they all handle differently, they all stand a chance in any race on any track.

And this, my friends, is because of Motorstorm’s revolutionary track design. Nearly every single track has certain sections of the track devoted to certain vehicle types. For instance, you’ll drive into the open on a certain track to see some narrow scaffolding on the left, a giant mud pit in the center, a decent size ramp on the right, and a dirt trail on the far right. Can you guess which paths go with which vehicles? So essentially every time you race down the same track with a different vehicle there are better paths for you to find for that certain vehicle. So not only do you get a whole new experience on old tracks you’ve completed, but it will take you quite a while to find the perfect route for any single vehicle you’ve already raced with. Just a few minutes before writing this I found a small passageway through some rock caverns that I had never seen before which let me finally take gold. And that’s the other great thing about this setup; you must find good fast paths in order to take the top seat as the AI gets quite good in the end game.


Mud Plugger action.

Motorstorm also has an excellent rock soundtrack that really jives well with the constant roar of motors while racing. From Nirvana, to Slipknot, and Queens of the Stone Age, there’s something for all those rock tastes out there. Fortunately you can turn off and modify the play list and unfortunately you can’t use a custom soundtrack.