Ahh, its that time again when evolution studios hits us with another Motorstorm, the most brutal and outright awesome racer of them all, in the form of a festival that if it really existed I would already have my tickets booked, but this this time, they have made it a bit more…apocalyptic.

As a massive motorstorm fan I couldn’t wait to play Motorstorm Apocalypse, and after playing it, I was most impressed. The first thing that really struck me was that Motorstorm Apocalypse actually has a story! Yes a story in a motorstorm game! It was obviously a massive risk for Evolution to take, but boy did they pull it off well.

Basically (without giving away to much) there are 3 story lines told from 3 different protagonists. One a rookie Motorstormer called Mash, the second a

Motorstorm Pro called Tyler, who has a suspiciously Street Fighter like haircut, and the third a guy called Big Dog, a motorstorm veteran (pretty much your Vietnam veteran of the MS World). As you have probably guessed you start off as the rookie, Mash, but rather than just going straight into a race, you have to get to the event first. The game plunges you straight into the awesome action of this apocalyptic world from the moment you finish watching the motion comics, which are done extremely well and aren’t your boring old comic cut scenes. Straight away you arrive in a World War Two style landing craft and boost your way to the event through a world that is ridden with destruction in the newly added class of car, the ‘Super Mini‘ which is basically a bunch of small, compact cars that go surprisingly fast. This is where your Motorstorm begins, so brace your self; you’re in for the ride of your life.

Anyway, Your not here to read the story line of the game, no your hear to see if the its any good, and before reading on I can confirm the answer to that question, Yes. MS Apocalypse is a massive improvement over the first 2 games; you’re not just flicking through races unlocking cars, why would you want to do that? Menus don’t collapse and wreck your fellow racers now do they? The game gives you the best vehicle for the job, and it does it well. All the vehicles definitely handle better in different places like in the first 2 games (Excluding Arctic Edge) but they feel more natural and, well, real. A mudplugger now actually looks like what you would see plugging through the mud in the real world, bikes feel like they are suited to do exactly what they do well, go fast and smash into other people, and for me that’s just excellent.

The destruction is amazing, and the PS3 handles it so well, I haven’t experienced a single bit of lag at all! Even when the whole city is falling aparteverything ran smoothly and made for a fun and breathtaking race. I always find myself taking a breath of relief after every race, they can get so intense when battling it out with your opponents that when you finish your like “Wow, did I just do that?” The soundtrack is just awesome. This time around it’s a completely custom soundtrack made by…some DJ’s and it suits the game perfectly, where as although the previous motorstorm games had great soundtracks, some songs just didn’t fit with the brutality of this off road racer. This time its like Dubstep, Pendulum and The Prodigy (Really heavy bass lines for the musically uneducated) all thrown into a blender, and coming out as a ray of heavenly light which just enters the game somehow, the music just has an aura of awesome about it.

Now, you have probably heard the word ‘awesome’ a lot in this review, because that truly is one of the only ways to describe this monumental game, but I do have a few criticisms. Like every game it has its faults, one of the biggest is a bit of a long story but I’ll try and shorten it for the length of this review. When you get wrecked you re-spawn, and fast! (Which is brilliant!) But you start with the same boost level as before, which is really annoying as you re-spawn at a total standstill, and if your boost is on the critical level, you have nothing to get you off the line faster! It really gets annoying, but then again this is one of those games where you can be in 12th place for the whole race, but come out on top in the end. Like I mentioned earlier, there is loads of new cars and bikes, with more categories, they have added muscle cars, super cars, super bikes and choppers, as well as the super minis I mentioned before but one vehicle category that I wish would just go is Monster Trucks. I’m sorry if you love monster trucks but I have gotten to the point where I cant stand them, and here’s why. They hog up the track for the entire race and then if you even attempt to get round them, your crushed, your car has gone from a super car, to a super pancake. When racing with monster trucks it starts off line “YES I AM THE KING, I WILL CRUSH YOU ALL!” but after 2 laps its like “My god this is dull” they are slower, they handle like absolute **** and I just get so bored driving them, you just want to race round a destructive city shouting POWER and boosting past everyone.

So other than that, the game is amazing. The races have the right amount of laps depending on the difficulty and the intensity of the race which don’t get boring as you will probably spend the first 2 out of 3 laps working out how not to wreck on this track, then absolutely own the last lap and come out first.

So, with the amount of cars, destruction, awesome music, and brilliant online, I wouldn’t give picking this game up a second thought, just get it, you will have hours of entertainment playing this weather your tearing through the story, or just blazing people online (which works very well with the new Betting and Perks) you will have hours of fun with this excellent game. I know I haven’t said much about the online, but I guess I’ll have to do that one separately as this review is already long enough! In conclusion all I can say after playing this is, if you’re the kind of person who prefers driving a tuned Ferrari with realistic handseling round a track somewhere in France, this probably isn’t the game for you. So to close this review, I say bring on the apocalypse.