MotorStorm: Apocalypse is a 2011 racing 3D video game by Evolution Studios and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 3. It is the fourth game in the series and the third for the PlayStation 3. It was announced shortly before the beginning of the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2010 on thePlayStation Blog by Evolution Studios on 10 June 2010.
MotorStorm: Apocalypse was released in Europe on 16 March 2011 but the UK release on 18 March was delayed by Sony Computer Entertainment UK following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The Australian launch went ahead as planned on 17 March, but Sony announced further shipments of the game to that country would be halted in the wake of the disaster. The planned North American release date of 12 April 2011 was delayed by Sony who later confirmed new releases dates of 31 March 2011 in the UK and 3 May 2011 in North America
New vehicles in the game include supercars, superbikes, hot hatches, muscle cars and choppers. Apocalypse is the first game in the MotorStorm series to focus on an urban setting as opposed to natural environments. The city that the Festival takes place in is enduring the throes of a massive natural disaster, causing the man-made structures in the city to visibly deteriorate. As players race through the tracks, the tracks can change in real-time; bridges can buckle and twist, buildings collapse and rifts open up beneath the vehicles as they drive. Players can also customize their vehicles with vinyls, vehicle parts, and modify the vehicle's handling, boosting and offensive abilities through perks. They are able to create and design their own game rules for online tournaments. A new gameplay element is the addition of "air cooling" one's boost. Similar to driving through cool water in Pacific Rift would speed up the rate of boost cooling, releasing the accelerator over a large jump will also cause the boost temperature gauge to drop quicker.
A new challenge in Apocalypse is the introduction of people who try to interfere in the event. The City houses two factions, known as the Crazies and Dusklite, who vie for survival. These groups try to impede the progress of the racers. They loot broken buildings, break into fights on the streets, steal cars and try to slam racers off the road, and attack racers with firearms. A private military company attempts to enforce order and their involvement creates additional hazards for racers to overcome such as an attack helicopter firing missiles onto the track
Review
The good
Cleverly designed tracks
Destructive events make each race a thrilling experience
Beautiful visuals
Lots of multiplayer options.
The bad
Shallow storyline
Boosting opponents feels weak.
The MotorStorm series has always eschewed simulation in favour of big thrills, chaotic racing, and exotic circuits. In MotorStorm: Apocalypse those elements have been refined to focus on what the series does best. The thrills are bigger, the racing is more intense, and the circuits are intricately designed and breathtakingly beautiful. They're also complete and utter anarchy. Earthquakes tear up roads, tornadoes hurl speeding trains at you, and helicopter gunners do everything they can to turn you into a fiery ball of twisted metal. By destroying the very ground you're racing on, Apocalypse throws up constant surprises that test the reflexes of even the most hardened racing fan, making each race an absolute delight from start to finish.A new challenge in Apocalypse is the introduction of people who try to interfere in the event. The City houses two factions, known as the Crazies and Dusklite, who vie for survival. These groups try to impede the progress of the racers. They loot broken buildings, break into fights on the streets, steal cars and try to slam racers off the road, and attack racers with firearms. A private military company attempts to enforce order and their involvement creates additional hazards for racers to overcome such as an attack helicopter firing missiles onto the track
The good
don't know why I still do it, but I do: My car gets wrecked; tossed around; ran over; rear-ended out of the winning spot; taken down from a qualifying spot; squashed; or flattened against a highway divider by a monster truck. However the method, I must have watched my chassis explode one too many times on this same race. But after all that, I still hit the X button to respawn my ride in MotorStorm Apocalypse, and go diving back into the fray.In general this sums up a lot of what it feels like to play a MotorStorm game; a series where racing across visually impressive vistas -- and winning -- can come to a shattering halt with one wrong move; all in glorious high definition. Still, as a fun arcade-friendly racing franchise the series has a near excellent resume of finely-tuned roadways that utilize every earthy surface on the planet -- from muddy desert backdrops sparsely filled with Burning Man-esque art, to hot and steamy laps around magma rocks. Up till now, it almost feels like the series has seen it all.
This latest installment from developer Evolution Studios puts racers in the remnants of "The City," a devastated coastal city ravaged by earthquakes, hurricanes, rioters, and even private military companies. The single player campaign, called Festival Mode, builds up your driving skill by forcing you to tackle this backdrop from the perspectives of three different drivers: Mash (the Rookie), Tyler (Pro), and Big Dog (Veteran). All three are members of MotorStorm, a gang of pumped up super drivers looking for fast thrills in the evacuated confines of The City.
As laughable as the context for the story might seem, the apocalyptic vision of a destroyed city by the bay feels very real, and surprisingly, as a space for races, works very well. Each track is littered with half-wrecked buildings, broken highways, and other junk splattered across town (worry not, for there are still branching pathways and shortcuts to discover). And now there are natural disasters, which are the biggest highlights of the new MotorStorm.
Surprisingly, these occurrences make a majority of the environments feel alive and dynamic -- even though all of these same events are scripted. Most of them look and feel like something out of a big budget Hollywood movie; and they have a huge impact of how you race. On a three lap race, for example, laps one and two can be relatively simple with little to no change. But during the third lap, an earthquake can cause two buildings to collapse -- closing off part of a roadway or creating brand new land masses you'll have to dodge. A sequence like this is really fun the first time you experience it, but you'll expect it the second or third time you race the same track. Despite that, these occurrences surprisingly never get tiring even though they happen the same time every time. It's still fun to experiment and find new passages when others have been cut off.
Once you clear the rookie campaign, the kind of skills you'll need to reach a qualifying position for advancement to the next race can then border on omnipresence. And remember, that's just for a qualifying spot (which is usually third place on Pro difficulty). If you're in a race where everybody drives the same vehicle, then the races can be pretty easy. But take into account that MotorStorm tends to purposely pit you against bigger vehicles; so while you speed along on a tiny dirt bike, a Big Rig then comes along, and well, you know the rest. I swear, at one point I thought there was a monster truck with my name permanently printed on his bumper from how many times he ran me off the road.
Hopefully, you can now picture how one-sided some of these races can get; which in turn leads to "bombarded" serving as the best descriptor for the most common feeling you'll have in MotorStorm Apocalypse. You're assailed vigorously by the A.I. You're barraged deliberately by falling debris. But if you're up for the challenge, it's ultimately rewarding when you race that perfect line and survive the innumerable hazards. Carefully maneuvering through dense car crowds (up to 16 at one time) in competitive races, survivor events, and eliminator challenges has to be one of the most exhilarating experiences in a video game -- even if you start to feel like a glorified crash test dummy
This latest installment from developer Evolution Studios puts racers in the remnants of "The City," a devastated coastal city ravaged by earthquakes, hurricanes, rioters, and even private military companies. The single player campaign, called Festival Mode, builds up your driving skill by forcing you to tackle this backdrop from the perspectives of three different drivers: Mash (the Rookie), Tyler (Pro), and Big Dog (Veteran). All three are members of MotorStorm, a gang of pumped up super drivers looking for fast thrills in the evacuated confines of The City.
As laughable as the context for the story might seem, the apocalyptic vision of a destroyed city by the bay feels very real, and surprisingly, as a space for races, works very well. Each track is littered with half-wrecked buildings, broken highways, and other junk splattered across town (worry not, for there are still branching pathways and shortcuts to discover). And now there are natural disasters, which are the biggest highlights of the new MotorStorm.
Surprisingly, these occurrences make a majority of the environments feel alive and dynamic -- even though all of these same events are scripted. Most of them look and feel like something out of a big budget Hollywood movie; and they have a huge impact of how you race. On a three lap race, for example, laps one and two can be relatively simple with little to no change. But during the third lap, an earthquake can cause two buildings to collapse -- closing off part of a roadway or creating brand new land masses you'll have to dodge. A sequence like this is really fun the first time you experience it, but you'll expect it the second or third time you race the same track. Despite that, these occurrences surprisingly never get tiring even though they happen the same time every time. It's still fun to experiment and find new passages when others have been cut off.
Hopefully, you can now picture how one-sided some of these races can get; which in turn leads to "bombarded" serving as the best descriptor for the most common feeling you'll have in MotorStorm Apocalypse. You're assailed vigorously by the A.I. You're barraged deliberately by falling debris. But if you're up for the challenge, it's ultimately rewarding when you race that perfect line and survive the innumerable hazards. Carefully maneuvering through dense car crowds (up to 16 at one time) in competitive races, survivor events, and eliminator challenges has to be one of the most exhilarating experiences in a video game -- even if you start to feel like a glorified crash test dummy
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