MotorStorm: Pacific Rift

The original MotorStorm was rushed out the door in order to make the PlayStation 3's launch -- as its lackadaisical load times and bare-bones, fix-it-with-patches feature set clearly attested to -- yet the high quality of the underlying game made those rough edges bearable. With its breathtakingly lifelike visuals and unique approach to off-road racing against a rampaging pack of different vehicle types, MotorStorm succeeded in creating an arcadey, pick-up-and-play racer with an addictive hook.

Released alongside PlayStation 3 in March last year, MotorStorm was a raw, single-minded distortion of the successful WRC series that gave Evolution Studios the opportunity to make it in the first place, introducing multiple vehicle classes to the same track and playing host to the seemingly cunning technical innovation of persistent surface deformation. But while the rutted surfaces left in the wake of each lap's storm of thundering metal - and the implications for those that followed - made for easy headlines, given that they planted a flag for things that the then-four-hundred-quid console did over and above its predecessor, they never defined the first game. Instead we eulogised sensations dormant since the heyday of EA's SSX, which are now enjoying a renaissance best exemplified by the critical success of Black Rock Studios' excellent Pure a few weeks ago.

Cloudy.

Truckulent.

"Other racing games tout some degree of insanity, but few ask you to ramp over an active lava flow riding what is essentially a dirt bike with a rocket boost. The original Motorstorm was an all-out racing game that regularly featured similar stunts, but was handicapped in that all of the tracks took place in the same overall setting of high mesas and perilous cliffs. Motorstorm: Pacific Rift addresses that complaint and takes to the track on an idyllic Pacific island packed with a large variety of tracks and even more ways to display a stunning lack of common sense."