Motorstorm came free with many a launch PS3 and gamers were treated to one of the best off-road racing games ever made, not to mention of one the best games on the PS3. Motorstorm is back and this time we travel to the Pacific where volcanoes and other natural obstacles wait in our path. Motorstorm is a must have for the PS3 and Pacific Rift is looking to be a valiant successor.
Yes, MotorStorm 2 has been released. The sequel to the biggest selling PS3 title takes you to a luxurious Pacific island with 16 brand new tracks. The game will feature four player split-screen multiplayer, finally.
The trailer is CGI, but is representative of final gameplay. I was intrigued and contacted SCEA to find out of fully or partially destructible environments will be in the final game, as seen in the trailer. Unfortunately, they couldn’t reveal any information as of yet, but told us to stay tuned.
Another update has been released for Motorstorm for the PS3. How many people are still playing this game? Anyway, here’s what you can expect from this update:
It’s great to see developers still putting effort in to make their games the best experience possible, even almost a year after release. If you’re an avid Motorstorm player, go grab the patch and spray some mud everywhere.
I recently picked up a PS3 due to the price break, 5 free movies and wanting to see 300 on Blu Ray. I opted for the regular 60 gig version with no frills added and an HDMI cable (not included) over the new 80 gig bundle with Motorstorm for $599. After playing around with it and setting it up I have the following inital impressions:
- This thing is heavy!
- PS3 is whisper quiet, my 360 is ridiculously loud and even my Wii is louder
- The PS3 controller is feather light in comparison to other controllers due to the lack of batteries, this takes some getting used to
- PSN is pretty good and can match or even over take the other two consoles download netwokks, IMO
- HDMI was simple to hook up but expensive
- Downloading demos is awesome, it is interesting that you have to install them once you have downloaded them, which is different than the 360
- Six axis controller recognition works very well
- Resistance Fall of Man looks like a good shooter, very much a cross between COD and Halo
- Online play in Resistance with 32 players was lag free, this was very impressive
- Folding@Home looks interesting and confusing at the same time
- Looking forward to increasing my PS3 library with Stranglehold
The UK isn’t getting a price cut on the PS3 like we saw in the US. Instead, Sony is adding some value to the console and now calling it a Starter Pack.
For your £425, you’re now going to get the 60GB PS3, two SIXAXIS controllers, and copies of Resistance: Fall of Man and Motorostorm. Sounds like a pretty good deal, right?
Here’s where I see a problem with this bundle… no one in the UK under age 18 can buy this bundle. You might say people under 18 don’t have that much cash anyway, but that’s not the point. By including Motorstorm, and 18+ game in the UK, Sony is preventing the sale of the Starter Pack to minors. Seems like a poor choice in my eyes. What do you think?
Sony didn’t want to wait until E3 to drop the big news that the current 60GB PS3 will see a price cut to $499 effective immediately. That’s some great news for people who’ve been on the fence. I can see this really driving PS3 sales in the coming weeks.
On the heals of the price drop announcement, Sony also let out that a new 80GB model will be released this August bundled with Motorstorm for $599. Pretty cool.
I’m betting Sony anticipated a price cut announcement and such from Microsoft, whose E3 press conference occurs before Sony. In an effort to get the hype going, this announcement comes a few short days before Sony’s big E3 event on Wednesday. Either way you want to look at it, this is great news for the PS3. What I’m wondering is how they’re going to follow this announcement on Wednesday? There must be something fairly big up their sleeves…
Well, even more delays for the big v1.2 update for Motorstorm for the PS3. This time, I respect the developers for delaying the patch.
On PlayStation.Blog, Felice Standifer, a Senior US Producer for MotorStorm, wrote about what’s going on:
“right before we were planning to go live with the 1.2 updates with Time Attack mode, a new issue was found on the patch that could result in people not being able to establish a network connection. So, unfortunately, for now we need to continue to run tests and monitor the fix to ensure that it does not occur when the patch goes live”
I’m all for open communication in the gaming community, and this is a perfect example. There’s nothing worse than delays that are never explained. I have a huge level of respect for any developer that will come out say “We’re delaying this, and here’s why.”
Kudos, Sony. Hope you get it fixed soon though 
A new patch is coming for Motorstorm for the PS3 on June 7th, bringing the game up to version 1.2. The new patch has a ton of bug fixes, as well as some pretty cool new features for the game.
For the single player mode, there is now a Time Attack portion that will let you race against your fastest time as a ghost racer. Your fastest ghost will automatically be updated to the global leaderboards so anyone can race against your best time. So if you can’t beat your friend, keep racing against his ghost so you can fine tune how to run the course. You can race with up to 7 ghosts at a time.
To get the update on June 7th, fire up the game and select Online from the menu. You’ll be prompted to install the update.
The PS3 launched in PAL territories last Friday, and we’re not getting reports of sales numbers from Europe.
In the UK, we now have a new leader for the fasting selling launch console ever. The PS3 sold 165,000 units, trouncing the competition in it’s opening weekend. The Xbox 360 sold around 70,000 units in it’s opening weekend in the UK, with the Wii seeing around 105,000 units sold in it’s opening stint.
This is pretty surprising, given the media coverage for the PS3 launch in Europe. All reports were of slow sales, but this turns those reports around.
In the same breath, PS3 games are leading the UK sales charts, with Resistance and Motorstorm claimed the top two spots.
Maybe the PS3 isn’t so doomed after all…
One of the games for PS3 that I’m most excited about, MotorStorm, is being delayed from late February to “Spring 2007″. Yeah, those vague time frames are always terrific. IGN reports that the official Sony website removed the game from the February release list and relisted in the Spring category. IGN contacted Sony, and got this response”
“The team is doing some additional fine tuning and getting the online features squared away so they are taking a bit more time,” said the Sony representative. “It’ll come out in March, though we make the specific date public yet.”
Well, guess I’m going to have to stick with the demo for a bit longer. I would love to get some new tracks and cars to race with. Hopefully the online multiplayer is good too.
