Sony’s exclusive off-road racer MotorStorm has finally made it to the PSP. With the previous two versions doing relatively well on the PS3 can MotorStorm: Arctic Edge possible live up to the quality or will it fall into the mediocrity of so many other PSP racing games?
The first thing that comes to mind with MotorStorm is gorgeous graphics, high intensity off road racing and mayhem. Well any fan of the series then you will be quite pleased to hear that MotorStorm: Arctic Edge delivers on pretty much everything you have come to expect. From the crisp graphics to the neck-breaking speeds, MotorStorm: Arctic Edge offers it all and much more.
This iteration takes place in Alaska which means miles and miles of snow covered terrain to conquer. The snow and ice can cause sliding and loss of traction, but that’s where the new vehicles come into play. Besides the usual vehicles the bike, ATV, jeep, rally car, buggy and big rig they also added two new vehicles the snow mobile and snowcat. The snowmobile is very similar to the bike and quad, but seems to handle a little better in some of the deeper snow. The snowcat on the other hand is more like a tank with big treads digging in and a giant plow on the front. It may take awhile to get going, but once it does watch out.
The controls work very well and in fact a lot of the time the vehicles seem to handle better on the PSP version than any of the PS3 ones. The left trigger is used for brake and the right trigger for gas, X is your turbo, circle is your hand brake, square is the horn and triangle change the camera. The directional pad enables views around the vehicle.
The title screen provides two options Festival or Wreckreation. Festival, which is the main single player mode, is made up of roughly 100 different single player races. Start at level one and gain points as long as the race is completed in the top three placement. Third will yield 50pts, second 75 and first 100 points. These will help increase your rankings which will unlock more races. Reach level eight to unlock all the main races.
Some of the Festival races offer a bonus objectives, these will range from finishing a race under a certain amount of time or leading the race by more then 10 seconds. Completing these objectives will earn a star which unlocks a special kind of race. There are two different specialty races.
The first race has four players competing to be the first to reach 999pts in a set amount of time. Gain points throughout the race and by maintaining the top position. These races can be quite hectic, but are a real blast.
