I've never been much interested in real-world off-road racing, dirt bikes, ATVs, or anything like that, but I do have an experience that'd make ya think otherwise. When I was in High School I used to own a 1980 Ford Fairmont. Ugliest car in the world! After a couple of years of avoiding the DMV, I finally had to get rid of it due to it being unsmogable. So as a last hurrah, we decided to take it out in the fields and give it the time of its life. Two things I learned from that experience are: do not do doughnuts in a dirt field with the windows open and the second is not to take a jump at 60mph without wearing your seatbelt (I shoulda remembered my lessons from Atari's Hard Drivin' arcade game!)

My friends and I survived the ordeal with the car only losing its muffler and as scary as that was, it was also one of the most thrilling experiences I'll probably ever have in an automobile. I remember at the height of the jump our butts were no longer on the seat, backs pressed against the ceiling, and we were screaming our brains off thinkin' we're gonna die. What does my silly story hafta do with Motorstorm? Motorstorm is probably the closest you'll ever get to experiencing what I went through 15 years ago, without nearly killing yourself and explaining to your momma why you're covered with mud.

Just the good 'ol boys
Motorstorm is an insane off-road race through the Arizona desert offering up a heap o'different vehicles to choose from. You can race most anything from motorcycles, ATVs, buggies, trucks, and even big rigs. The tracks have you barreling down mud filled gorges, scraping the edges of a cliff doing your best not to fall to your doom, and jumping off ramps (this last action tends to result in you smashing your ride into the mountainside.) Every vehicle includes a super boost, which you'll need to master in order to win any of the races. Use it incorrectly and, well, you'll end up smashing your ride into the mountainside, again.

The graphics are arguably the best that the Playstation 3 has to offer and the game has songs by the likes of Nirvana and Reverend Horton Heat to get ya pumped. The online experience is near flawless. Even on my 600k DSL line, I didn't see an ounce of lag. Even though I should knock Sony some points for not including it out of the box, they did release a buddy list last week to make it easier to find your friends online. Better late than never.

Smokey and the Bandit
Just as quickly as Motorstorm gives ya that super adrenaline rush, you'll come crashing down pretty hard after a few levels. Progressing through the games circuits becomes a huge chore, as by the second race you'll have to start completing tracks with specific vehicles in order to unlock the next goal. Until you can effectively beat the track with that particular means of transportation your playtime will be reduced to running the same race over and over again. What makes this worse is that fact that MotorStorm has fewer than ten tracks on tap and as pretty as they look, you'll get bored of them eventually.

How can you have an insane racer like this without some kind of split-screen multiplayer? I was showing Motorstorm off to some friends who couldn't wait to give it a go, but the fact that we couldn't play against each other was a big let down. Racing games are all about competitiveness and throwing it in your buddy's face! Online still doesn't quite have the same effect as when your pals are in the same room. The long blu-ray load times didn't help with the patience factor, either.

Fall Guy
Motorstorm is a great show piece of the PS3's capabilities both online and off. In tiny doses, the single player game is a blast and now that you can find your friends, the online portion is that much better. You can't help but feel that Sony was a bit overambitious with this title and needed some more time to put out something a bit more, um, feature filled. They do promise downloads (tracks, cars, etc.) in the near future so hopefully that'll help us get our money's worth. If that don't cut it, maybe Sony'll hear my pleas and put them into Motorstorm 2. We'll see.

- NakedBoB