ThomasGOAL
Retired Footballer
- 15 March 2003
E3 2010: MotorStorm: Apocalypse First Look
Tearing apart the city in Evolution's destructive racer
The soundtrack sums it up perfectly; the immortal bassline from Lalo Schifrin's Bullitt theme thumps along, evoking the urban cool of one of cinema's most stylish car chases before it's ripped apart by a violent break-beat. On-screen herds of vehicles race through a city that's eating itself, whole office blocks tumbling and gun-toting groups on foot creating a scene of perfect chaos. It's an old standard given a fresh twist, and that's the perfect way to describe developer Evolution's latest.
A series that's in a near-exclusive club in reaching its third instalment this generation, you can't blame the Liverpool studio for wanting to mix things up this time out. The first MotorStorm was a successful launch title, the sequel a respectable if unspectacular continuation that spawned an Arctic spin-off on PSP and PS2. And the third? Well, from a distance it's hard to identify this as a MotorStorm game at all, the screen brimming with explosions and flying concrete. Get close and personal and the series' DNA shines through, the races a familiar blend of multi-vehicle mayhem
Here's the premise: the MotorStorm outfit, having done dust-bowls and jungles, has packed bags and shipped out, their destination an anonymous and fictional West Coast city that's in throes of a natural catastrophe – and what better place to kick-start another MotorStorm festival? Set over a three day period, MotorStorm Apocalypse's backdrop is rapidly disintegrating. On the first day it'll be all tower blocks and freeways, but come the festival's climax it'll be a mounting pile of rubble – and the final race will be a mad dash for the MotorStorm freight ship as the city consumes itself.
If that all sounds vaguely familiar then you're not alone. Disney and Black Rock's Split/Second was a recent and largely successful attempt to take destructive driving to the next level, and alongside Bizarre's brilliant Blur it's signified something of a small trend as the racing genre tries to come up with an answer for its decline in popularity.
"We spoke to the guys in the States about it, we spoke to people in Japan – but the answer's kind of obvious," says MotorStorm Apocalypse's game director Matt Southern. "There's a sense that other genres are over-delivering, particularly the cinematic kind of experience – the Uncharted 2s and the Modern Warfares of the world – they're not just good, they're mind-blowingly awesome. We see a lot of racers that are good or great – and we've been fairly lucky with high review scores and decent sales – but then you're seeing shooters doing 10 million plus. People want to be really excited – and in the last 12-18 months you've seen a few guys realise the same thing."
If success is about over-delivering then MotorStorm Apocalypse should have no problem at all; even at this early stage it's stuffed with content. Single-player is split into three separate campaigns of differing difficulty, and they're personified by three distinct characters. First up there's The Rookie, a stowaway on the MotorStorm carrier who provides the entry-level experience. Next there's The Survivor, the medium character who acts as the gateway to The Big Dog, a gruff biker who embodies the veteran difficulty level.
All of them have their own unique perspectives of the three-day event, and their stories interweave from beginning to end. "While I don't want it to be like Memento, we're going to have lots of connections like that, and we'll conclude the game in a way that'll tie that all together," says Southern, "You could be playing the game as Rookie at the end of day two and the track's a mess – and you're thinking 'what's happened here?' Later on, you'll play as the survivor at the time just before that race and you'll see it all go off."
There's more than the MotorStorm contingent occupying this catastrophe-struck city. Stragglers and survivors line the streets, split into two separate factions as a PMC (they get everywhere these days, don't they) tries to keep order while looters wreak havoc. It has an influence on the races; fights break out in the streets, looters will commandeer vehicles and use them to ram the player off the road and it's not uncommon for an attack helicopter to get involved. It's another layer to the chaos of MotorStorm Apocalypse's races, and the result is action that's a heady storm.
A hands-on with a single track in single-player bears this out. It's initially overwhelming – on top of the usual business of seeing to the opposition - never the easiest of tasks when your sportscars going toe-to-toe with monster trucks and big rig - there's the wealth of environmental hazards to take into hand. The handling is a little nervous - but you would be too if you had this much chaos descending upon you, and it lends a responsiveness that's necessary when avoiding the many hazards.
There are some deft cinematic moments dotted throughout as well. At one point a flaming truck flies across the air and time slows as the camera zooms in on the action, while at the lap's climax the car leaps through the air, the player lining up a perfect landing only for the ground to give way just before impact and sending the cars plummeting into the subway.
It's impressive stuff, and Evolution seems to have learnt valuable lessons from stablemates Naughty Dog (some of whom are helping out with MotorStorm Apocalypse's storyboarding) and Guerrilla. Like the latter it's also taken on the importance of variety, and while we're only witness to the race through high-rises in this early look, the sprawl of the city is going to be fully exploited with parks and the suburbs set to feature.
There is, of course, life beyond MotorStorm Apocalypse's campaign. "The end of the world is really just the beginning," jibes Southern before detailing a multiplayer mode that is, unsurprisingly, taking Modern Warfare's formula as inspiration. Blur proved that it's an approach that works, so expect a familiar system of perks and levelling to form the foundation. "The way that Modern Warfare made online, the progressive thing of rewards and even if you weren't a hardcore gamer you could still get a lot out of it, that was a big influence," Matt tells us.
But remember, MotorStorm Apocalypse is about giving more than expected, and that's seems as true of the multiplayer component as it is elsewhere. "When I first played Modern Warfare I thought it was one of the most generous games I'd ever played," Matt enthuses. "It was this constant delivery of cool shit, and when it came to us asking what's going to excite people about a racing game it's the same kind of thing. We want to make promises on the game and then over-deliver on them. Easy to say but hard to do, and that's the challenge we've set."
So MotorStorm Apocalypse is giving more than its fair share of options. There's four-player splitscreen – not spectacular in itself, but certainly more exciting than normal when you factor in the ability for those four players to join in with 12 others online. Modes can be created from scratch with a simple language system being used to define game rules. It sounds smart, but it's still under wraps.
As is, it would seem, is the 3D that's inevitably going to be part of the final package. "The official line is watch this space," confesses Matt. "Evolution Studios has done a lot of 3D work, we've been doing it for four or five years now and we know what works and what doesn't." When (and of course if) it arrives it'll form another part of an already feature-stuffed game – and one that's set to tear the racing genre apart all over again.
http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/109/1095814p2.html
screenshots :
http://uk.media.ps3.ign.com/media/076/076172/imgs_1.html
