DF Retro: Motorstorm - The Full Series Revisited - Amazing Arcade Mayhem on PS3, PS2, PSP, PS Vita

[Music] in this ageless valley a new breed of warrior has been born born to rage against the silence of these ancient rocks born to tear apart the very fabric of the desert the stage is set a storm is coming the man braces itself welcome to motorstorm this is motorstorm one of the first and most widely remembered games for playstation 3. it's a game designed to answer the question posed with each new console generation what makes a game next gen well with its robust physics engine and massive tracks motorstorm serves up a bold affirmative answer to this question delivering an experience that could never have existed on prior consoles at the same time the path to release was fraught with challenges that almost serve as a microcosm of the playstation 3 release itself it was a success however and the series went on to receive multiple sequels remaining beloved to this very day so on this episode of df retro we're continuing our look back into the world of classic racing games by tackling the motor storm series i'll take you on a journey beginning with the very first motor storm through its amazing sequels and even the spin-offs oh and if you've ever wanted to play motorstorm at 4k 60 frames per second we'll look at that too so grab your helmet and let's get driving [Music] [Music] motorstorm is all about splashing around in the mud but our story really begins in the skies above with the company known as digital image design formed in 1989 by martin kenwright and philip alisopp did made a name for itself in the pc space through the creation of high-end flight combat simulators such as tfx and its sequel ef-2000 the latter in particular is a remarkably impressive flight sim for its era with gorgeous fully 3d graphics and an immersive cockpit view did found tremendous success and towards the end of the 90s that success resulted in an acquisition by media giant infogram it's at this point then that kenwright and several key team members left the id to join forces with the late ian hetherington one of the founders of cygnosis to form a new company known as evolution studios now with a new studio comes an opportunity for a fresh start and kenwright and crew turned their eyes from the skies above to the dirt below developing a prototype rally game for the pc it just so happens this demo caught the attention of sony creator of the playstation which was on the verge of unveiling its next generation console the playstation 2. they formed a partnership which eventually led to an acquisition and over the next five years evolution studios would deliver a series of games based on world rally championship or wrc the official global rally competition the wrc games focused on delivering tight 60 frames per second rally racing with a nice balance between arcade style racing and simulation it features fully modeled cars both inside and out with an immersive cockpit view something that almost feels reminiscent of did's work on ef-2000 plus it features real drivers and events based on the then current wrc seasons the first game was a little chunky and low res in comparison to other racers of the era but by the 5th entry the series had become a serious player in the rally racing space and this was against some serious competition too with games like rally sport challenge on xbox vying for the crown unfortunately only the first wrc game saw release in north america so evolution wasn't exactly a household name stateside still the studio made a name for itself as a reliable producer of high quality racing games five games in five years is an impressive track record to be sure after the release of wrc4 however the team split into two most of the studio would continue working on the fifth and final entry in its wrc series but the other group started working on something new a game targeting the next generation playstation that was all but inevitable the game was called stampede and it was envisioned as a celebration of dirt racing featuring asymmetric vehicle battles massive tracks and a complex physics simulation with more than 50 vehicles in a single race the goal was to create something worthy of the next generation label but there was just one problem the next generation platform it was being designed for was nowhere near ready and things would get a whole lot worse before they got better and now i have the final and the biggest announcement everyone this is playstation 3. [Music] may 2005 the electronic entertainment expo begins on the cusp of a new console generation at a press conference before the show sony took the opportunity to introduce the world to playstation 3 the follow-up to the hugely successful playstation 2. this now infamous showing blew people away at the time promising a level of fidelity that seemed impossible and that's because it was phil harrison famously took the stage during the show presenting various games that were in development from their first party studios using these rather bombastic trailers killzone 2 received the most attention sure but there was another one that turned heads as well the reveal of stampede which was now known as motorstorm [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] this short trailer featured an unbelievable amount of chaos physics and destruction as a herd of vehicles stormed their way across the landscape but for the evolution studios crew back in runcorn england what should have been an exciting moment for the team what with the announcement of their next game turned into a moment of panic when phil harrison himself suggested to the press that this motor storm trailer represented actual gameplay it didn't the trailer had been created by vfx and cgi specialist known as realtime uk it was just a rendered flavor piece never really intended to represent the game itself but its misrepresentation at e3 wound up putting a lot of extra pressure on the development team a team that didn't even have access to the playstation 3 hardware yet it was still being prototyped on pcs at that point pcs that supposedly matched the specs of the real playstation 3. they wouldn't actually receive playstation 3 development hardware until months later leaving them with just one year or so to build the final game i'm told it was a very difficult time the hardware itself didn't meet expectations and the super tight deadline was always looming plus even adjusting things during development like the handling characteristics of each vehicle required going in tweaking values in a text file then recompiling the entire game and waiting for it to load it was very slow in its initial build beyond this the programming team found themselves implementing all sorts of new techniques that nobody on the team had really used before in a shipping game all while dealing with early unfinished sdks now the game's creative director later revealed that after seeing an early demo of motorstorm phil harrison actually took them aside to berate them calling the team at evolution the worst in the world referring to sony's internal development teams at the time but even in the face of adversity and technical challenges the crew at evolution studios were driven to deliver something as close to that original vision as possible and that vision was first made playable to the public in late 2006 [Music] [Music] for early adopters of the playstation 3 the demo version of motorstorm may have been your first experience with the console i can say for sure that it's actually the very first thing i ever downloaded from the playstation network it offered a race around the rain god mesa track with a choice of two vehicles and it was enough to show that yes motorstorm was the real deal the final game then was released later that year december 2006 first in japan which is the version i initially purchased myself before arriving in a more complete form a few months later in the us and europe it also received a later re-issue known as motorstorm complete in certain territories featuring all of the dlc tracks and updates on the disc but i'll talk more about that later for now though let's dive into motorstorm and examine why it's so special even all these years later as the initial concept suggested motorstorm is all about asymmetric racing that is races that take place with a variety of completely different vehicles each with unique handling characteristics ranging from dirt bikes buggies trucks and even semi-trucks the concept is unique even by today's standards but it's this marriage of the idea with several key design elements that really allows it to work so let me explain firstly the track design itself motorstorm features very wide tracks with each track offering drivers multiple routes that often crisscross one another the tracks themselves aren't simply tubes like many other racing games of the era the proper open environments with carefully crafted routes running throughout you always have that central route often filled with mud and debris but there's also these higher routes or two running along the edges of the tracks as well as the wild card route that can kinda send you all over the place each of these routes intersect regularly or simply pass above or below one another leading to a real sense of chaos during the race as you'll drive through a valley for instance you'll often see other racers launching just above your head crashing down the ridge to your upper right and continuing the sense of busyness specifically lends the game in energy quite unlike other racing games of that era or even today for that matter it's immersive and impressive you get the benefits of a track-based design with some of the freedom that people now love about modern open world racing games it really works well and perfectly straddles that line then there's the driving model and simulation itself motorstorm comes from that beautiful era between 2005 and 2008 roughly when developers seemed as interested in pushing complex simulations as they were high-end visuals to that end motorstorm is one of the first games on the playstation 3 to utilize havoc physics and it does so with extremely impressive results in fact the development team worked closely with havoc specifically to get this middleware up and running on the playstation 3 in the first place motorstorm takes advantage of this in three key areas then firstly rigid body physics this is applied to vehicles and trackside objects alike as you can see from these gdc presentation clips the tracks feature a wide range of such objects and debris scattered around the track strategically and the objects react to forces exerted upon them in a realistic fashion weight is also taken into account with these objects so it behaves differently depending on whether you hit it with a semi truck or say a dirt bike but they took this further by building larger structures from a collection of objects that could then be destroyed by colliding with them in this demo you can see how these structures all break apart as vehicles smash into them keep in mind that when motorstorm first released games like half-life 2 were only a couple years old so these types of interactions were still new and fresh i do get the impression that the goal here was to recreate the destruction evident in that original pre-rendered trailer but within the context of an actual game running on real hardware the third major area where physics come into play then involves the vehicles themselves specifically the progressive damage system basically as you race and slam your car into other vehicles or objects around the map metal bends body panels will be lost and your car is eventually left as little more than a driver frame and engine with wheels of course it's fully locational so you can lose a door or a bonnet or any other piece independently of the rest of the vehicle the combination of physics simulation along with very carefully tuned vehicle handling results in something that feels so visceral and substantial to play there's this physicality to it that i'm not sure any game before or since has ever quite matched the way the tires suspension and frames bounce and react to the various bits of terrain is so satisfying the simple act of driving feels good in motor storm and that ties directly into the intersection between driving and track design asymmetric racing is a nuanced topic as such a variety of vehicle classes necessitate careful balancing and design basically if you're driving a dirt bike and your opponent is driving say a giant semi truck the relationship between these two vehicles needs to be simulated correctly and that's what makes this so exciting lighter vehicles can move faster but they're basically moving targets for larger trucks and buggies handling is influenced by the terrain itself as well with dry rock behaving differently from say thick mud the higher routes tend to favor faster lighter vehicles like bikes while the larger trucks are better suited to racing right down the middle of the track events are designed to take this into account as well resulting in some pretty interesting challenges you'll have races with mixed vehicles of course but also events like this where you have a pack full of bikes alongside one semi truck basically terrorizing the middle of the track it's a blast this is enhanced by pseudo track deformation as well motorstorm uses normal maps to generate the tracks in mud and dirt these are persistent but they actually have an impact on the handling this means that on the second or third lap the center route will have become muddier and more difficult to navigate especially with smaller vehicles it affects both the grip and the suspension so it has excellent physics simulation track deformation and huge environments to race through but being a 2006 game it also features some other cool visual touches that were just beginning to appear in new titles for instance motorstorm uses cascaded shadow maps to enrich the rendering of the environments while enabling variable times of day by simply adjusting the sun position a minor thing by today's standards but very cool at the time it also features particles that are fully lit and receive shadows look closely and you can see what i mean they also lean heavily on motion blur to enhance the sensation of movement which works really well but the actual implementation is a little strange resembling more of an enhanced accumulation blur than the per pixel motion blur we'd see in many other games which is curious it honestly holds up surprisingly well today it's a native 720p game which isn't a lot of pixels but it's also not uncommon for certain consoles on the market today and it makes full use of 2x msaa the combination of the two results in something that still looks surprisingly clean and crisp in motion despite the low pixel count even today the one technical downside really stems from the loading times as it can take between 25 to 35 seconds or so to load a race which can be tedious i think when bouncing between events but hey at least restarting an event is instant motorstorm also features tremendous sound design with a wide dynamic range and active use of surround sound channels honestly in some ways it sounds more impressive than many modern games which often feature narrower dynamic range or a focus on headphones and tv speaker users motorstorm is clearly made to be experienced in a home theater now the original motor storm as with the games that follow remain an exclusive to playstation 3 with no ports or remasters for the more modern platforms with no options for backwards compatibility or enhanced emulation on real playstation consoles though this remains the only official way to enjoy it but there is another option in the form of rpcs3 the playstation 3 emulator available for the pc this emulator is incredible at this point and i'm happy to report that the two sequels to motorstorm which we'll talk about shortly run very well in rpcs3 but the original motorstorm isn't quite there essentially i've run into this issue vehicles lurching back and forth while driving rapidly it's been suggested that down clocking your cpu can reduce this issue to some degree but i've had no luck with it it just never behaves quite right however it does give us a taste of what's possible you can massively boost the resolution to 4k or even higher if you like while the load times are nearly eliminated by default it of course runs at 30 frames per second like a real ps3 but the community has actually developed a proper 60fps patch as well so by setting your v blank to 120 in our pcs3 and enabling the patch it becomes possible to experience motorstorm at 60fps it's really great it is however also extremely demanding i'm running this here on a 12 900 k with an rtx 3090 and it's one of the more demanding games i've tested on the emulator so keep that in mind the problem with the 60fps patch is that if you can't hit the target it actually slows down the game itself but when it does work wow seeing this at 4k 60 with 16 af it's really impressive and demonstrates just how beautifully designed the presentation in motorstorm truly is just look at this clarity here it's absolutely gorgeous now whether you're playing on the pc or sticking with an original playstation 3 i do want to briefly mention the ai now one of the game's defining features centers on the way the pack moves around the track it's almost like this choreographed destruction the game feels most exciting when you're driving in the middle of this pack or just behind them and there's a good reason for this the two layer ai system so the primary function focuses on getting the ai drivers from point a to b to c basically driving around the track while putting up a challenge there is some rubber banding in play here however which can make certain races frustrating but i think it works well enough the secondary aspect to the ai however is more interesting it's called the gag system essentially this is a system designed to produce exciting events around the player so when vehicles are within the view of the player basically in the camera frustum the game can dynamically integrate various scripted sequences and events into the race from basic hand gestures like this to performing cool crazy stunts it all adds a layer of spice to the races of course it's true the rubber band in nature can be frustrating but there is sort of a trick around this in the form of a bug essentially while playing the game you have this boost meter hold the boost to charge the meter and go extra fast but if you overheat your vehicle you explode but here's the thing if you keep tapping the x button while driving you gain the benefits of boost but you do not overheat your gauge it's technically cheating but when you combine the rubber band ai with the rather difficult later events in the game it can become rather useful now motorstorm received numerous updates as well as some dlc tracks during its lifetime but since this game predates sony's universal patching system for playstation 3 none of it is accessible from the normal retail disc you just can't update the game anymore and that's where motorstorm complete edition comes into play this version was released in japan and europe unfortunately it sells for a pretty penny these days but basically it includes the latest version of the game as well as all the dlc content right on the disc so if you want to own the complete version of this game that's the one to get one other feature i wanted to mention is the support for motion controlled steering remember when they added the motion sensing features to the controller and called it the six axis well you can hold it like a steering wheel and drive around using motion control and i have to admit it works a lot better than you'd expect at least when you play in first person it's a fun little bonus feature of course the original motorstorm was a huge success across the entire world it was one of the first big sellers on playstation 3. with that in mind then it's no surprise that shortly after its completion evolution studios began work on a sequel an island [Music] born from fire shaped by the elements claimed by nature and abandoned by man until now released just under two years after the original motor storm evolution studios returned with a brand new entry known as motor storm pacific rift the idea bring that original motor storm festival concept to a deserted island full of ruins tropical rainforests and volcanoes and let them lose it is in many ways what one might describe as the perfect sequel a game that builds upon the strengths of the original concept while pushing new ideas in all directions it's more refined features more content and is beautifully paced during the development of this game then and following the success of the original motor storm it should come as no surprise that evolution studios and in fact its smaller satellite studio big big which we'll talk about later by the way was acquired by sony boot up the game and once again you're greeted with a strong introduction movie introducing you to the concept of motor storm pacific rift before dropping you into the beautiful new menu system that menu system is now both more visually pleasing and more importantly perhaps better organized the main events are divided up into four elements earth air fire and water each category representing a unique style of environment to race in but it's not just racing this time new events are also introduced things such as elimination or checkpoint events and more are added to the mix bringing some additional variety to the game they've also included an entirely new vehicle class bringing the total up to 8 the monster truck as well as more flexible single player options online play and even up to four player split screen there's just so much more content and variety here compared to the original now once you actually start playing it's clear that things have changed a lot since motor storm one the vehicle handling feels completely different now compared to the original it's faster and less floaty i'd say but it still manages to strike a nice balance between responsiveness and bombast and thus it does work pretty well you get used to it of course one of the key new gameplay features revolves around the boost system if you remember in the original game you would hold the boost button to gain speed causing a meter to fill in the process but when it reaches the top you would explode due to overheating managing your boost was a key part of the gameplay with pacific rift however it now uses elements to control this specifically water and fire these both influence your vehicle temperature basically if you drive through water your accumulated heat is reduced immediately allowing for more strategic boosting opportunities conversely if you drive through fire or near the edge of a volcano your engine overheats and it makes it rather difficult to sustain a boost for any length of time speaking of water various rivers tributaries and pools now take buoyancy into account i mean the original game was set in the desert but water is a key aspect to pacific rift if you drive through such a stream on a bike for instance you'll float and sort of struggle to make your way across while larger vehicles basically sink to the bottom and storm right through without an issue and speaking of bikes another change involves the way melee combat is handled this is actually something i forgot to mention when talking about the original game but basically in that one when riding a bike or an atv you could press the square button to punch other riders nearby road rash style it's really cool but it was just a single button and sometimes it didn't get the correct target for pacific rift however this has been expanded to use the r1 and l1 buttons instead allowing you to choose which direction you want to punch in case you're surrounded the tracks feature significantly more variety this time then while i love monument valley's aesthetic pacific rift takes the players to so many different new locales and these locales have a direct impact on your driving wide open mountains and volcanoes allow you to run wild in these huge open spaces but there's also areas with tight man-made structures as well as thick jungles packed full of foliage that demand more precision in your driving the criss-crossing nature of the tracks remains intact and the way everything comes together is really fun and exciting it's a fantastic selection and by the way they've doubled the total number of tracks from 8 to 16. now technologically speaking in building the game the team actually went back to the drawing board completely re-engineering the entire engine as opposed to building upon the work from motorstorm 1. no doubt the result of tech debt incurred by shipping a game so close to the launch of playstation 3. they developed new techniques to allow faster iteration times and essentially more efficient development the new engine then also brings some nice visual improvements to the table allowing for even larger more varied tracks one of the key new features stems from the robust vegetation system a requirement for thick jungle environments present in many of its tracks we already had really strong rigid body interactions but now you get trees bushes grass and more that all look and react very realistically to the player using full touch bending that's right when you drive your vehicle into the vegetation it actually snaps and bends realistically it's kind of similar to something we saw in like say crisis but on a smaller scale of course and it really stands out as a feature that we don't even really see that often today motion blur was upgraded too with full per object and per pixel motion blur as was becoming common during this era and it looks a lot better than what we saw in the first game pacific rift introduces screen space crepuscular rays for the sun allowing streams of light to pierce darkened areas provided the source of the light is on screen of course another rather forward-looking feature for the era for water the developers primarily utilize a form of planar reflections which looks pretty nice while indirect lighting is handled using global ambient cube maps keep in mind however that this was still very much a game of that generation it uses forward rendering exclusively and lacks many of the more advanced features that would begin to arrive in the next few years however this approach has plenty of benefits including allowing things like particle shadows with ease not to mention performance efficiency and relatively low input latency now of course we still have all the features from the original game such as ground deformation via normal maps robust vehicle physics and even improved damage modeling which looks excellent but while we're talking about physics i want to mention the monster truck which is an interesting case it's giant tires required careful tuning to behave as you'd expect but to actually pull this off the game simulates soft rubber there's basically a cutoff point or a rigid body wheel within the tire and up to that point there's actual softness in the way it reacts to the terrain it's basically designed to simulate these large tires as it crawls across dirt mud and rocks now while you're in the action of course like the rest of the series this game runs at 30 frames per second evolution had originally expressed a desire to target 60 for that original game but it's clear in retrospect it wouldn't have been possible and it's not possible here either at least not on a real ps3 but more on that in a moment loading times are also similar to the first game at least in terms of getting into the races but the vehicle and track selection menus are so improved the first game shows these elaborate 3d dioramas which take a long time to load though a faster option was added in a later patch but pacific rift instead relies on these quick menus using 2d graphics instead it's perhaps not as flashy but it's a lot quicker and makes getting in and out of the action much easier i also mentioned split screen earlier and this is really an impressive addition pacific rift supports up to four players in split screen mode for this video i'm actually playing in the two-player mode with my son and i was amazed at how well it holds up this is actually the mode where the game implements dynamic resolution scaling a feature that was still relatively novel in 2008 and it's used here to keep the frame rate up even when you have multiple players on the same screen so between its features visual fidelity and the thrilling gameplay then pacific rift is a fantastic game and a must play for arcade racing fans but of course it remains constrained to just a single console the playstation 3. and this is where once again our pcs3 comes into play but unlike motorstorm 1 the results here are fantastic [Music] [Applause] [Music] this is pacific rift running at a native 4k at 60 frames per second with 16x anisotropic filtering on a pc it works just like the first game you raise the v blank to 120 then enable the frame rate patch there is one caveat though by default it doesn't work it runs at double speed to use 60fps mode properly you actually need to download pacific rift's real update file the same patch that ps3 users would use on real hardware update the game within the emulator and you're golden it's honestly a revelation i was surprised by how fluid and beautiful the game becomes in high resolution to the point where it's clear to me at least that a basic remaster on a modern console without any real visual changes would still hold up really well of course if you want to experience 60 fps in this game you're gonna need a powerful pc the specs required to hit a stable 60 are lofty indeed i did find that vrr can help smooth out some of the minor blips that i encountered in certain stages on my i9 12 900 k based rig but i'd imagine many other slower cpus will struggle to get even close so keep that in mind the other minor downside i noticed while testing the game though involves certain graphical glitches most noticeably with the mud this area for instance on ps3 starts green and as you drive through it you're left with muddy tire tracks on pc for some reason it's inverted and you see a muddy field that reveals grass as you drive through it there's other minor things like this where the visuals behave a little strangely but honestly it's not a big deal now of course i'd be remiss if i didn't include a proper comparison between playstation 3 and rp cs3 huh and yeah as you can see pacific rift benefits tremendously from the boost in image quality the higher pixel count makes a huge difference and we're seeing 4k down scale to 1080p here by the way but the largest boost actually seems to stem from the texture filtering improvements you see on ps3 it's limited to what seems to be basic tri-linear texture filtering which destroys most of the texture detail at a distance but on pc those textures are brought to life with 16x af exhibiting more detail that greatly enhances the appearance of the track perfect for all those long vistas beyond that many of the assets such as trees almost seem to be too detailed for 720p becoming just a mess of pixels on ps3 they really only look their best when running at a higher resolution like this so while it's not flawless per se it's getting very close and if you have a powerful enough pc i definitely recommend giving this one a proper shot i think you'll be floored by the results speaking of alternative methods for playing the game though evolution also released a version of the game titled motorstorm 3d rift this is a limited content version of pacific rift with a twist it supports stereoscopic 3d remember that craze yeah motorstorm supports it in this version and it's pretty good alas 3d tvs have all but disappeared in the modern era so actually experiencing this today will require jumping through some hoops personally i played it on a sony hmz t1 3d headset now before we leave pacific rift behind i want to mention the audio again the mix here is just incredible it's such a fantastic implementation but the soundtrack is even more fleshed out in fact the first two games in this series really offer just a wonderful mix of licensed tracks that perfectly fit the murder storm festival vibe i'm not always a big fan of licensed music in games like this but it really works well in this case and again the stunning surround mix and depth in its sound design stand up really well it actually sounds better than a lot of modern games if you can believe it the sound mix is fantastic so yeah pacific rift is a phenomenal game and arguably the best entry in the motorstorm series with its release in 2008 things seemed to be going really well sony had managed to turn the playstation 3's difficult launch period around the system was doing great on the market and evolution studios had a bright future ahead of it or so it seemed but we have to make a quick pit stop one year after the release of pacific rift motorstorm took an unexpected left turn [Music] rewind with me briefly back to the year 2001 evolution had shipped its first game wrc for playstation 2 which we discussed earlier in this video but at the same time four codemasters developers left the studio and formed a new development house known as big big studios and one of evolution's co-founders mick hawking had ambitions for creating a sister studio that would ultimately bring these two together while big big was founded in 2001 its first actual product release didn't come about until 2005 with the release of pursuit force for the then new playstation portable big big was basically dedicated to crafting games for sony's portable systems and after a sequel to pursuit force the team was given the chance to tackle the motorstorm franchise thus motorstorm arctic edge was born [Music] it's fair to say that this is a game you might never have expected to work after all murderstorm was known for pushing the playstation 3 with its impressive physics simulation beautiful visuals and packed playfields how the heck could they achieve this on a psp well amazingly it actually works pretty darn well the whole motorstorm ethos is preserved brilliantly it features the same asymmetric racing and wide track design of these originals while scaling down the more demanding aspects to work within the constraints of the platform this is most obvious in the simulation aspect physics are of course simplified along with a reduction in the number of rigid body objects in the scene as well as destructible elements but aside from that it feels surprisingly similar to the other motor storm games so let's talk about some of the highlights then firstly the menu system uses a new cool design language with this sort of spiral based selector you can go up down left and right as you go through the various events it of course also has the recreation option that we saw in the console versions and even support for up to 6 players wirelessly once in game it feels familiar you have to use the analog nub on the psp which isn't my favorite but overall it controls well once you've completed a few races however you'll definitely begin to notice some of the cool visual features on display so firstly the engine and technology here is completely original developed by big big itself it shares no code with the actual evolution games it's an original project but you can see that a lot of engineering time was poured into replicating that experience so for example arctic edge manages to retain the tire tracks present in the ps3 versions of motorstorm but of course uses a completely different technique to get there that produces results like this it seems to be some sort of texture layering trick but it's surprisingly effective reflective surfaces are present as well with icy sections relying on reflection textures to pull off the intended effect there's some neat tricks to simulate eye adaptation when moving from darker regions into brighting areas it seems to attempt to deliver a result similar to games using an hdr pipeline for rendering which was very common at the time arctic edge itself isn't using anything like that but it kinda works i'm also a fan of the old school lens flare effects that you see throughout the tracks and speaking of the tracks they're surprisingly large without relying on any sort of distance fog or clipping it's kind of amazing to see just how well the detail holds up on a screen like this in fact the lack of mipmaps helps give the illusion of sharper texture detail at a distance compared to the rather blurry ps3 games of course at the same time there's no way they could have replicated the more advanced rendering features like shadow maps per pixel motion blur sun rays and the like so it does feel rather old school in that regard but overall i think the art direction helps pull it through and it looks great in motion more impressively loading times are faster than they were on ps3 despite running from the notoriously slow umd drive obviously it's moving a lot less data but again umds the frame rate then is extremely stable even with a full grid of cars in the field and the controls and driving model are top notch on top of all this the game even has a photo mode in which you can save shots directly to your psp memory stick which is just really cool i think very forward looking for the time the point is arctic edge is one of the most successful attempts at bringing a larger experience to a smaller less powerful device that i can remember and it really demonstrates the technical skills that big big studios had to offer now arctic edge was not just a psp title however virtuous a studio that's still around today and known for its supporting prowess was tasked with bringing this game to the playstation 2. that's right there was a motor storm game on ps2 in the year 2009 this is an interesting version then naturally it runs at a higher resolution than psp which was limited to 480x272 the resolution of the lcd built into the system and the ps2 version looks really sharp on a crt monitor where it's intended to be played for comparison by the way i captured the psp version using the component video output from a psp 3000 it's a little noisy but it works another peculiar quirk with the ps2 version is that the aspect ratio is actually determined by your setting in the ps2's bios menu if you set your display to 4x3 it'll display the game in 4x3 but if you choose full or 16x9 the game plays in widescreen more surprisingly is the difference in the way lighting is handled the psp version uses the strong bloom and the aforementioned eye adaptation tricks all of which seem to be somewhat absent on the playstation 2. my guess is that the techniques developed by big big specifically for psp didn't translate over perfectly to the ps2 and virtuous had to find another solution still it's a fascinating release as we didn't see many playstation 2 releases during this era it was 2009 after all three years after the release of playstation 3 and this is a full first party racing game too so in that sense i do think it's worth checking out though i still prefer the psp version now another method for playing arctic edge today is via emulation for the psp version the ppsspp or however you say it emulator is the go-to choice as it tends to have high compatibility and great support for additional visual features there is a caveat though with arctic edge firstly you'll need the european version of the game if you use the us version there's a major graphical glitch with shadows it's not entirely clear why this happens but it remains a problem even with the latest version of the emulator so just use the european version but even with that version however i was never able to fully dial it in so to speak i tried various apis d3d opengl and vulkan and each of them exhibited texture issues vehicle textures the boost gauge and even the skybox often display garbage like this it's still perfectly playable mind you but it feels a little off as a result of the texture corruption i also found that frame persistence was less smooth than a real psp with obvious inconsistencies during a race most noticeably while racing in a pack despite the emulator reporting 100 speed so while it's a decent option i'm not entirely convinced that it's the best option for playing arctic edge unlike rpcs three with pacific rift the game simply looks best on a real psp in its original miniature size in comparison the playstation 2 version works surprisingly well on the emulator pcsx2 the visuals scale up nicely and exhibit very little in the way of rendering bugs it's a lot more accurate than the psp version running via emulation and it runs like a dream without any of the performance issues i noted on real ps2 hardware the game uses a full frame buffer too for rendering so there's no issues with interlacing artifacts at least within the game as is the case with certain other games while emulated it just looks awesome that said i did notice one minor glitch with the game's menu system where the background is sorted improperly appearing on top of the selector but honestly it's not a big deal as the rest of the game plays without issue so yeah arctic edge was another motorstorm success while it didn't enjoy the same degree of popularity as its bigger brothers it's still well regarded and looks amazing for a game created to run on a 2004 portable console if you like psp you've got to check this out so yeah in 2009 motorstorm was on fire so it should come as no surprise that a new entry was also in the works for playstation 3 but things would go a little off the rails [Music] this is motor storm apocalypse the final main line entry in the motor storm series this time players are dropped into a city under siege with storms earthquakes and other natural events ripping apart the tracks as you race through them it's a game that has big ideas that fall short in some areas but it's also a victim to rather unforeseen circumstances circumstances that would unfortunately have a real human cost outside the world of video games as a short while ago a 90 centimeter tsunami hit the port of soma and a 60 centimeter tsunami hit the port of onohoma march 11 2011 a magnitude 9.1 earthquake occurred just off the coast of japan this powerful quake resulted in a devastating tsunami which slammed the island nation leaving destruction in its wake it also resulted in a disaster at the fukushima daiichi nuclear power plant it was a terrible tragedy that impacted so many lives but what does this have to do with motorstorm well the original release date for motorstorm apocalypse was march 16th just five days after this disaster unfurled the game's themes of urban destruction too closely resemble the real world tragedy that unfolded in japan and thus the decision was made to delay the game and cancel all marketing it did actually arrive in australia as planned and its european date was only pushed back a little bit but it was completely cancelled for its japanese release and the us release date was moved to early may and then disaster struck a second time it's being called a security breach of staggering proportions sony has confirmed that hackers broke into its playstation network exposing the personal information of up to 77 million users worldwide in mid-april less than a month before the release of motorstorm apocalypse in the u.s the playstation network was hacked and users personal information compromised this attack resulted in a service outage that would last nearly one month motorstorm apocalypse launched during this period with no marketing and no online multiplayer as a result of psn being down the circumstances around its release could not have been worse but despite the situation i was there day one to purchase the game and it is an interesting racing game that's for sure so motorstorm apocalypse represents a dramatic shift in the tone and design of motorstorm i mean yes at its core it's still about driving one of many vehicle types around these large tracks while taking out ai opponents along the way but the themes are so completely different the festival theme of the first two games has been completely abandoned and the main single player portion is now driven by a story told using these video sequences video sequences that were written and animated by an outsourced company and while i like this concept in theory i feel that the sequences never actually manage to gel with the action itself they're just too different and it's jarring this also directly impacts the progression through the game itself in pacific rift for instance you always had a wide range of events to choose from due to the elemental grouping but here you basically play through each event in a linear fashion with these cut scenes between each one it works well enough and there are some fantastic events mind you but i prefer the way it worked in pacific rift once you actually start playing the game though it is pretty interesting this is the kind of shift in design we don't see too often these days it feels like evolution really wanted to try building something that was truly different fresh and new while still channeling that motor storm essence in the first two games it was really just a battle between you and the opponents as you made your way around the course these courses were generally very static and this is what led to many interesting dynamic moments between them for motorstorm apocalypse however it's less about racing your ai opponents and more about just surviving as the tracks themselves constantly change around you and it's very easy to get hung up on scenery or simply fall off the track but that destruction is a huge part of its appeal and it's very impressive to behold delivering this though required some major changes to the game's underlying technology for this vision to work evolution would need to be able to drastically alter the track itself including the ability for players and ai to drive on top of structures as they collapse it needed to support more dynamic lights to allow the special effects to really shine it needed to support more advanced weather effects tons of particles and a whole lot more basically a lot had to change so firstly the decision was made to evolve from a forward renderer as seen in the first two games to a semi-deferred light pre-pass render this allows increased flexibility in terms of dynamic lights and other features which were necessary to deliver on the concept and deferred rendering was also becoming rather popular at this time as well so i'm not too surprised they made the jump furthermore the team implemented a wide range of new features on the back end to enable faster iteration for the development team the shader pipeline for instance was far more agile enabling artists to produce their best work without leaning on the programming team as they had in the past they also tapped further into the spus on the cell processor pacific rift already made this jump mind you but it's pushed even further this time even going so far as to implement mlaa an spu-based anti-aliasing solution developed by sony itself perhaps more impressively the game's rendering resolution was increased from 1280x720 of the first two games to 1280 by 1080 using the ps3's 1080p output mode to achieve it the initial goal here was to support a resolution more conducive to stereoscopic 3d which this game does support but it has the side effect of also improving the experience on a normal tv the higher rendering resolution combined with mla produces a much cleaner looking game the biggest challenge they faced however was making the events themselves work as planned you see at any point during a race it was possible to trigger these massive track changing sequences that not only kick up a ton of special effects and particles around the player but can alter where the player and ai can drive the huge dust storms that would kick up after a building fell for instance were created using these interesting dust spheres around the player that almost deliver a volumetric-like effect and the events themselves could be set up to trigger using a new sequencer they developed similar to a video editing program even but even when all the rendering challenges were figured out the simple act of driving around the track on such a dynamic circuit was difficult driving feels tighter and less floaty than the first two games for one a change i don't love necessarily but this was the result of these dynamic tracks they basically had to massively increase the downforce on vehicles so that when a building starts to tumble your car doesn't go flying off into oblivion evolution spent a lot of time also working on the game's ai they needed it to react to the events such as track destruction but if the ai drones were keyed into these events too early the player might see an ai opponent dodge an obstacle that isn't yet there basically spoiling the upcoming sequence to that end they managed to craft a system that allows the ai to react at roughly the same time as the player which enhances the realism so there's a lot going under the hood then more than i could discuss for this video really but the point is apocalypse stands as one of the more impressive games released for playstation 3. i mean just look at some of these scenarios as they play out entire tracks ripping themselves apart armies storming beaches and bridges buckling it's super impressive stuff that said as impressive as all this is there's something about the game's fov and the way the vehicles handle that never quite sat right with me it almost veers a little bit too close to a different style of racing game compared to motorstorm and it loses something in the process that looseness was a huge part of the appeal the nature of these environments also means that there's a lot more debris that you can get stuck on you'll find yourself slamming into structures more often than you like and getting hung up on pieces of debris which can be frustrating initially as far as performance goes then the game runs pretty well on playstation 3 delivering a stable 30 frames per second most of the time it can dip of course and dynamic res scaling is used from time to time but in general it's impressively solid unfortunately the loading times are the worst yet resulting in some serious waiting times between races something i found especially frustrating now that we're used to things like ssds and consoles but as with the prior games there is a solution here in the form of rpcs3 just as with pacific rift it's a solid option when it comes to enjoying the game but this one needs a little more care when using higher resolutions for instance you need to scale up certain settings to avoid visual corruption it's also a game that's listed as having issues and not necessarily playable from start to finish i didn't encounter any problems in my testing but i also didn't attempt to finish the game on pc that said once set up i felt the experience was pretty solid a lot like pacific rift if a little more demanding overall with vrr there's really no issue to hitting 60 fps with the fps unlocking patch but it can be challenging on more complex tracks considering the heavy reliance on spus it's unsurprising that the game requires a lot of hardware grunt but it's something to be aware of ultimately apocalypse is a good game but i feel it strays a little too far from the festival vibes that i love from that original motor storm and its sequel it lacks the chaotic fun the series had been known for at the same time once you accept that it's a different style of motor storm game it becomes easier to love the tracks are extremely impressive to behold and some of those events are just a lot of fun going beyond similar games of this era even such as split second at the same time it's pretty clear that the release of this game had a negative impact both on overall sales and the studio itself it's ultimately the game that ended the series but it wouldn't be the true end [Music] following the release of apocalypse evolution began work on two new projects one would be revealed in early 2013 alongside playstation 4. this of course was drive club the gorgeous still amazing racing game that also suffered a difficult launch period the other however was smaller a top-down racing game known as motorstorm rc the idea combined themes from each motor storm game into a simple top-down racing game where you drive radio controlled vehicles around a track it's reminiscent of classic 8 and 16-bit games in fact it was created for both playstation 3 and the playstation vita it also features just an absolutely huge amount of content to enjoy basically this little rc game takes the themes from all prior motor storm games and shoves them into this slick little package you have multiple camera angles but the game is ultimately viewed from above in all modes and the cars handle a lot like actual rc cars it's just a ton of fun to play impressively the interface is basically always available by tapping the select button it brings up the selection menu allowing you to move seamlessly between different events with barely any loading times at all there are normal race events of course but also events focusing on things like passing a set number of vehicles in a set amount of time nailing time trials and more plus each environment has four tracks and there were even extra dlc packs on top of that the original ps vita version was given away for free initially thanks to a partnership with scion toyota but the actual purchase price was really quite low anyways and it supported crossplay allowing you to download both the ps3 and ps vita versions of the game this also extends to the multiplayer side of things where it has sort of this asynchronous cross-play design where you're setting records and competing with your friends directly all of this was made in just 10 months to boot making it a perfect little side project for the team at evolution before it moved on to its next big game it's just a shame that we never received a proper physical version the retail vita copy sold in europe is really just a code in the box technically speaking it appears to have been built primarily on the engine powering motorstorm apocalypse as it shares many of the same rendering characteristics the one downside to this however stems from the frame rate rc is capped at just 30 frames per second on both platforms which feels rather sluggish in a game with this much lateral motion which is of course where our pcs3 comes in once again but this time it might actually be the best use of it motorstorm rc is virtually flawless on our pcs3 and greatly enhanced firstly the resolution boost is a huge deal on this case given that the camera is so zoomed out playing it at say native 4k makes it a lot easier to see what you're doing beyond this however not only can you reach 60 frames per second thanks to a community patch it's a full proper unlocked frame rate too which means if you have the hardware muscle you can push the frame rate way beyond in fact on my pc i was hitting over 140 frames per second with g-sync and it just feels amazing to play this way honestly it's so good that it feels like a proper native pc port of the game it's just the premier way to play it now of course i can't forget about that vita version which is also very interesting it's a really nice version of motorstorm rc that's super crisp on the vita screen and it plays really well the only downside is that the frame rate is not as steady as it is on ps3 and there is some screen tearing even still it's definitely worth a look no matter where you decide to play it with the release of motorstorm rc however the series ended and evolution would shift its efforts entirely over to drive club and this is where things started to go wrong drive club is an amazing game one of the best racers of that generation but it also had a very difficult time making it to market it was delayed a full year for starters and when it did launch the servers were down for weeks yet despite that drive club itself is brilliant in fact the whole online aspect on which it was sold while neat is honestly not even needed to enjoy this one it has a robust single player mode packed with content so many cars so many tracks are here this is evolution's first and aside from the vr spin-off of drive club only playstation 4 game but it shows how far they had well evolved drive club makes the leap to physically based rendering in style with some of the finest vehicle rendering and environments of its day the materials work the lighting the effects the weather everything it all holds up so well today what really impresses me is just how dynamic everything is every track has a fully dynamic time of day alongside a beautiful volumetric cloud simulation and dynamic weather the weather was added in a later patch of course but for my money it's still one of the best examples of this in the business the way in which the rain collects on the windshield only to be wiped away by the car's wipers remains outstanding drive club also really puts its dynamic time of day to use night time isn't just an excuse to reduce the scene brightness no when the sun goes down it goes dark really dark it simulates the effect of driving through a mountain without street lamps at night and it's just unbelievable heck it even simulates things like the highway mirage you know the effect in real life where a thin layer of hot air just above the ground causes the perception of reflections along its surface yeah drive club has that honestly when i look at where we are today in terms of driving games i feel that drive club demonstrates just how far ahead of the curve evolution studios really was release this game today at 4k 60 frames per second and honestly it would stand almost toe to toe with the best games on the market it's really that good i honestly can't think of another racing game with the sky system this convincing and atmospheric plus it just so perfectly captures that thrill of tackling mountain passes it's an intense game to play and one that sort of washes over you with this raw intensity and part of this is due to the sound design which is spectacular absolutely jaw dropping and i adore the soundtrack selection too which sees the british electronic music duo hybrid take point on the game's soundtrack along with remixes from other famous acts the music is actually set to zero while driving by default but i recommend cranking it up because it adds a lot to the experience of course if you play drive club these days the servers are long gone but at least when enjoyed on a playstation 5 the load times are reduced to basically nothing and there's tons of single player content to enjoy evolution also released a vr version of drive club a bikes focused add-on and more the game was extremely well supported and beloved by many but alas the release situation and the changing market conditions ultimately resulted in the closure of evolution studios sony could have had its very own forza horizon competitor or at least a chance to return to the motorstorm series but they've tossed it aside in favor of zombies in hollywood it's not difficult to feel some sense of loss of course following its closure the studio was acquired by codemasters and given the chance to develop a new game the arcade driving experience on rush i did a full documentary feature on this game showcasing how it was made but unfortunately the game was somewhat overlooked by the public at large and the lack of traditional racing was kind of a turn off for some but i maintain that onrush was secretly a brilliant game that deserves more love but of course even after that thankfully most of those that spent decades at evolution studios have landed on their feet in the industry today their talent and skill has not gone unnoticed but rather than dwelling on the end of evolution let's instead look back fondly on those good times motorstorm had a strong run each of its three main entries offered something truly unique in the arcade racing space and love for the series remains as strong today as it ever was it is i believe one of the high points of the ps3's legacy a brilliant series created by a legendary studio in fact i believe the legacy of motorstorm is strong enough to warrant a proper return perhaps the festival could be truly brought back to life as we've seen in the superb forza horizon series or maybe just a simple remaster is all it would take i think it would do very well for now though we have these original motorstorm games that we can continue to love and enjoy and as a result the legacy of motorstorm will never truly be forgotten long live the festival [Music] [Music] uh [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Digital Foundry

Views: 265,495

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Id: Hmzt7D1C19Q

Length: 69min 40sec (4180 seconds)

Published: Fri May 20 2022