MotorStorm apocalypse mad maxish features.

[lord humungus]

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2010/06/10/introducing-motorstorm-apocalypse/

Post Apocalyptic? NO!

The city has been abandoned and somewhat damaged after a tremor. When the ‘Stormers find this out, they head straight in. Pretty soon, two things become clear: it isn’t completely empty and Mother Nature isn’t done yet!

Throughout the game the city will be ripped to pieces, in real-time, as you race. Routes will be affected, as will our emergent gameplay.

Buggies using collapsing walls as half-pipes. Big Rigs on the rooftops of skyscrapers as they collapse. Superbikes gunning into the basements of enormous rifts. Supercars flicking on their headlights to barrel through the subways and sewers. Multi-vehicle pile ups on giant bridges as they buckle and twist. Driving through someone’s office and smashing up their desks. It’s all there.

Two groups have also stayed behind, and neither takes too kindly to MotorStorm’s arrival. I’ll talk more about them another time, but for now I’ll say that when they realise there isn’t going to be much of a city left, they start to destroy it too.

This isn’t post-apocalyptic. It’s apocalyptic. You are there when it happens. It’s survival racing.

Variety, Chronology and Depth are King

We’ve listened to everything people said about our previous games and, as a result, one of our priorities is to make a more satifsying overall game experience. In our single-player mode, every race is unique. When a building comes down it stays down. When you race a track again, the buildings will still be down and the MotorStorm crew will have carved yet more routes into the ruined landscape. The only time you’ll see the same thing twice is when you choose to. Underscoring this chronology is the fact that you’ll get to see the game from three different viewpoints.

Nothing annoys me more than the notion that an accessible action racer must also be shallow or plain dumb. So once you have experienced the single-player journey, the true depth of our title will come to the fore. Our overhauled ‘Wreckreation’ mode has been heavily influenced by the best online titles: from shooters and action adventures, RPGs and platformers. It features:

* Sixteen player online multiplayer.
* Four player split-screen.
* Combinations of the two. Play with three friends in the living room against 12 more online.
* Massive vehicle customisation. Change vinyls, vehicle parts, vehicle shapes and more. Upload them to the community site and share them with others. They automatically work on all vehicle types, and include your PSN ID.
* Vehicle perks. Modify your handling, boosting and offensive abilities as you unlock new perks.
* A wealth of rankings to progess through online with associated rewards and recognition.
* Stacks of online rewards to earn and persistent progress giving the most determined and successful racers the status and recognition they deserve.
* Persistent matchmaking. Keep your party together throughout your gaming session.
* A Game Mode Creator. From a completely blank canvas you can design your own game rules and victory conditions, play them online, and incorporate them into tournaments.

Lots More

We’ve got a lot more to reveal too; things like replacing loading screens with cut-scenes that finally reveal what it’s like to be a part of the MotorStorm subculture, to changes to handling and boosting, to the five completely new vehicle classes making their way to this festival.

The end of the world…is just the beginning.

this may be another cock tease with talk of deep vehicle customization but if vehicle shaping is possible and as deep as it sounds then maybe just maybe this would be the game for us gear head/mad max fans. i'll keep you posted with video updates on customizaton modes as well as a rental review with the game comes out.

if it's all that you will get my honest review of it. but if it's just another bait and switch then i'll tell of that too. but either way you will get a real review from a real mad max fan/aficionado. i won't steer you wrong chums. till then keep your fingers crossed and your mind open.

[Stef-Man]

Just a thought here... I'm currently playing at MotorStorm Apocalypse and it reminds me an idea I had few years back... It could be really really cool to have a car chase in Fury Road which takes place through a major devastated city. I thought at the time it could be a huge update to the previous chases made in the 80's. It could explain the huge budget for the movie But it must be only one big and spectacular sequence... car chases in the desert have to be here in Fury Road, those are so iconic! Speaking of videogames, I have to say there is a strong Mad Max feeling in some of MotorStorm 3 sequences. I hope both Fury Road game and movie will amaze us with at least one big chase through post-apocalyptic urban landscape

[MWFV8]

Love the idea of a city chase Stef-man but only if it was pretty much all real. i.e not like that cgi nonsense at the start of I Am Legend.

[Stef-Man]

Love the idea of a city chase Stef-man but only if it was pretty much all real. i.e not like that cgi nonsense at the start of I Am Legend.

I hope it will be pretty much all real if such a sequence turned to be in the future movie! But.... I remember an interview of Brendan McCarthy (it was at a time where Mad Max 4 was considered to be an animated feature) who was amazed by the visuals in Wall-E, in particularly the realistic urban landscapes... Is this a clue for the possible introduction of similar landscapes in Fury Road? Well, we have to wait and see... but I think it will be hugely cgi if a city is introduced in Mad Max 4.

[MWFV8]

Yeah I agree the city would have to be mainly cgi. I wouldn't mind that as long as the car action was real.

[lord humungus]

well got some bad news and potentialy worse news. bad news: thanks to hollywood video going out of buisness all we have left in this town is the franchise blockbuster stores as the cororpate blockbusters also went out of bueisness. and these francise stores get what they want which means they do not tend to get everything anymore when comes to games. long story short (outside of gamefly which i am not a memeber of.) i cannot rent motostorm apocalypse to give you that mad max review of the game and if it has said feature to reshape the vehciles making on vehicle (like say a ford falcon.) out of another generic car in the game.

the potentialy worse news is...so far most early videos (i am guessing before the final build.) show no such feature in the customization menu. it doesn't mean it's not there but i am starting to doubt that this game has a feature to truely restructutre the body thus allowing us to take some honest stabs at a mad max car.

but that's not to say there are not some mad maxish like features to it. i saw some sun shades one could put on the cars and a few other small details and you can do custom decals and paint jobs but it doesn't help the feeling of a bait and switch when they talk about vehicle reshaping making it sound like we could make our own cars how we want to like in a mad max universe where each car was unique and was somewhat of a character all it's own in the movies. something i've rarely ever seen done again.

so when i do get my hands on the game i'll report back to you since for me...mad max is more then just mad max himself...but the freedom of truely custom car building set to an apocolyptic background. sure it has it's messages and underlying themes but beyond that,it's what meets the eye that matters for a mad max experience. at least from my point of view.

so i'll report to you when i have a copy to let you know if you get more mad max for the buck or not.

[lord humungus]

found a blockbuster in town...the place is a rip off btw but i digress,that had motostorm Apocolypse for rent.

So I'd like to break this review into two quick reviews. the game on it's own merrits and the second would be,as always...is it a mad max game. so here goes.

Motorstorm apocolypse finds a renegade band of stunt racers who want to try their luck at racing through tracks that no one would dare drive through. such as a hurricane tearing a beach apart of a town crumbling under the shock of a powerful earthquake. you have three classifications for diffculty. each class has it's own rewards which can be used for the customization of your ride as far as astetics with each class beaing broken up into two day race before the island tears itself apart. these days however are cut up into morning,midday and evening races. Motorstorm apocolypse bills itself as a balls to the wall racing game with deep cusotmization....and sadly misses that mark.

while the races do have varation..the A.I. is a mixed bag of unbalance. some races they will leave you alone and let you have an honest try for the minimum place one needs to qualify for the next race. while in other races for no decernable reason the racers will all seem to try to knock you off balance causing you and the A.I. to crash...that is when it's not stealing your minimum place to qualify for the next track at the last possible second...or in otherwords it can pour on the dick moves from out of nowhere and for reasons that benifit neither the computer nore you.

customization is also where the game fails to deliver. you cannot level up your car and getting first place only nets you the ability to play the track again in hardcore mode,but with the A.I. being what so unblanced and broken you find no reason to replay the tracks in hardcore mode. you unlock cars but only if you beat all the three classes to get them and some fan favorite cars are absent unless you buy them as DLC. as for the actualy customization...it consists of a few parts (most of which have to be unlocked online or you can't ever earn them,not great if you don't have internet or a way to get it for your system.) and a few paint job and sticker choices. while the parts can "reshape" the bodies look...all of this is luke warm at best. you cannot make up your own stickers like other games of it's type and at the end of the day you really don't care to unlock the handfull of crappy parts they do offer.

the racing in rookie was most enjoyable...but once the game got to pro,which is the next teir up,the controls suddenly go sloppy and the A.I. seems to be on permanent dick move. throw the fact that you can over boost so easily,which blows up your car -insert eye roll here.- and the other fact that they often times put motor bikes in races with monster trucks that can easily over power or even kill you and you have a reciepe for a terrible and frustrating game playing experience no matter the players ability. this reviewer never finished pro and eventualy stopped playing the rental all together.

In short,the game falls short of almost all it's goals. in the harder modes it's almost impossible to place for even a qualification to the next race and even if you do you feel less a sense of accomplishment and more a sense of anger at the developers who promiced so much and gave us so much less. the game is broken and in short it's not even worth it to play the online for the part unlocking.

now is this a mad max game.

almost. the environments,when tearing themselves apart,reminded me much of mad max. some of the cars and costumes come very close to that of mad max. but like with games before it,it falls short of it's goal which is sad cause it does have a level called "road warrior." in it. if they had really implamented body reshaping then the cars could be made unique..or uniquely mad max. if they allowed you to use parts from other classes..like say monster truck tires on regular truck or truck lights on cars this title might have been one I'd have recomended to mad max fans even with the unblanaced and even manic A.I. it would have made it worth it to unlock more parts and customize the rides like we want. it would have even been great if you could make stickers yourself. if we could paint our warmachines the way we want or even like the cars of made max or road warrior I'd be down with that. but they don't.

This speaks volumes of how tired I am of so many companies out there talking about having a "Mad Max" inspiration...or even a "Mad Max." feel...and yet the games are nothing like mad max and don't give off that vibe we all have been craving since we could hold a joystick. This is for the game developers whom I know aren't listening. EITHER MAKE A MAD MAX GAME OR DON'T STOP WASTING OUR TIME AND STOP LEADING US ON. if i have to see one more ad or interview where a deve invokes the words mad max and then delevers nothing like it,i'm going to stab someone painfuly with a rusty spoon.