Motorstorm sequel gears up for Fall release

by Ludwig Kietzmann { Mar 12th 2008 at 2:35PM }

Those eager to strap themselves into inelegant hunks of metal and hurtle across slippery jungle tracks take note: You are insane. Also, you might be interested in the upcoming Motorstorm 2 (working title, apparently), which takes the best-selling PS3 launch game's off-road racing into the "unpredictability of a remote Pacific Island." There you'll encounter 16 new multi-route tracks and impossibly huge monster trucks.

Thankfully, you won't be experiencing the "thick swamps, dense jungle, towering peaks and steaming volcanoes" on your own, as the online racing mode will cater for up to 16 players. Motorstorm 2 also promises a revolutionary new feature: "Split-screen Multiplayer" for up to four players! We hope that means the sequel will actually feel complete, as opposed to feeling dependent on patches and DLC over the course of several months.

Motorstorm is expected to return on PlayStation 3 this Fall. Until then, you can watch the embedded trailer which likely isn't very representative of the game -- again.

Tags: BreakingNews, Evolution-Studios, Motorstorm, Motorstorm-2

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Ted @ Mar 12th 2008 2:40PM

That was a cool trailer, it almost looked like it was going to be for Crysis 2 or something :P

D_Average @ Mar 12th 2008 4:01PM

True, but there is no way this game will top Nitrobike!

Marry me Mario PSN: Killjebus @ Mar 12th 2008 2:44PM

I just do not see the point of a CGI trailer anymore. Both the 360 and the PS3's REALTIME graphics are good enough to use as a trailer. Please Sony, NO MORE CGI BULLSHIT, show the GAME. 16 player online and 4 player split-screen racing is nice to know.

Still, I am very much looking forward to this game. The 1st one was very enjoyable despite its somewhat barebones features and the HORRIBLE choice to NOT include split-screen racing.

Please make the inclusion of compatability with the GT wheel more than just an after-thought this time.

Maverick Saturn @ Mar 12th 2008 2:48PM

Doesn't look half as real as the last cgi trailer, this one looks a little bit more like actual footage, whether or not it is actual footage.

Putting that aside, I couldn't be any more geared up for Motostorm, am still playing the original, although, without split screen it often gets dull.

I hope they make the enviroment more death-defying and destructable this time round, like the video shows, I want to be able to smash things down and cause chaos on the track, get a few more crashes out of people :)

Marry me Mario PSN: Killjebus @ Mar 12th 2008 2:55PM

REPLAYS I want REPLAYS. Full replays please. When I play a racing game especially split-screen with friends...replays are a blast to watch...especially those with a bunch of chaos going on. You get to sit back, enjoy your beer, some green leafy substance and talk smack and joke about the last race you just did.

Gran Turismo showed just how IMPORTANT Full replays are to racing games.

NOT having replays in the 1st Mortorstorm just sucked period Sony. It sucked big, fat, sweaty chocolate ballz.

Maverick Saturn @ Mar 12th 2008 2:58PM

Lol, that would be cool, but if that 'Home' idea came into place about being able to spectate, that would be even better.

What I want is less loading, more playing, more destruction, better smashes, because seeing the same parts fall off every time you crash gets boring. Maybe engine catching fire, anything I guess that will make the game better.

DangerMouse @ Mar 12th 2008 2:59PM

Slap this game on the Crysis engine and be done with it already.

Sir Fidlious Wong (Zeon Defense Force) @ Mar 12th 2008 3:06PM

Replays, especially replaces with recorded ghosts (maybe normal replays aren't protected), are patented by Atari with their patents in refernce to Hard Driving. Which means every game which features ghosts, has to pay Atari a bit of money to use it. From Bemani's interface to Sega's Crazy Taxi arrow....

Gameplay patents are stiffling the industry and shouldn't even be legal...

So maybe replay function is something Sony didn't want to invest in for this game?

Maverick Saturn @ Mar 12th 2008 3:09PM

How can you patent replays? Thats stupid :S

Thats like patenting practice mode or patenting the word 'campaign' in games :S

Marty @ Mar 12th 2008 3:24PM

I think they must still use CGI because they always want to get trailers out before the game is anywhere near ready for public eyes.

That said, I can't stand CGI trailers - I mean, what is the point? The movie industry doesn't release animated trailers of upcoming films... if a studio tried that, it would be the laughing stock of Hollywood. Why is it acceptable in games?

It's completely false advertising, and it ought to be stopped.

Maverick Saturn @ Mar 12th 2008 3:27PM

Movies don't need to, they release all the good parts of the movie, so theres nothing else available to see that good when you do go to watch, talk about suspence and thrill killer.

Sir Fidlious Wong (Zeon Defense Force) @ Mar 12th 2008 3:30PM

Dude, Konami patented commands scrolling to the top of the screen for Bemani. This is the reason why Pump It Up was taken to court and DDR clones license their interface from Konami. This is also why Frequency, Amplitude, and most Harmonix games essentially ditched the straight scrolling commands for the "corridor" perspective.

Frankly speaking, what the patent office is allowing to be patented nowadays is downright stupidity.

After all, every wonder why only Namco does minigames or arcade classics during their loading screen? Namco patented the idea... this is one of several articles around gameplay patents...

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3562/the_designers_notebook_damn_all_.php

Maverick Saturn @ Mar 12th 2008 3:42PM

Sounds pointless to me, why would you want to patent a game command? The game itself yes, the plot yes, the chracters, vehicles (if they're not real) etc yes. But a simple option?

upz @ Mar 12th 2008 3:45PM

"...I can't stand CGI trailers - I mean, what is the point? The movie industry doesn't release animated trailers of upcoming films... if a studio tried that, it would be the laughing stock of Hollywood."

Actually, they do something similar all the time. Evolution has explicitly stated that this is a "teaser" trailer. Remember what the teaser trailer for the new Batman movie was? That's right, a big, dull, screen-filling logo with some music and voice tracks played over it. And I bet that laughing stock will be laughing all the way to the bank.

Sir Fidlious Wong (Zeon Defense Force) @ Mar 12th 2008 3:53PM

Well, part of the issue is in the fact that several of these patents SHOULDN'T be granted. When smaller devs patent the idea, the normal thinking is "if Capcom steals our idea, we're screwed." But now that they have the patent, they've officially locked the genre from moving forward. After all, you may have the idea, but you're done it half-heartedly so the industry needs someone else to refine your idea.

Some companies don't do these styles of patents but now they run the threat of having a previous solution to a problem in a previous game suddenly showing up in a patent years down the road. There have been cases where companies have patented someone elses idea just because they didn't patent it first, sometimes months after the cases release. Case in point, Immersions vibration patent was based around technology already being used in pagers and arcade cabinets.

Patent abuse is becoming a growing issue in the industry. Especially when the judges asked to make decisions on patent lawsuits have neither the knowledge of the industry they are ruling on or the inclination to educate themselves on the matter.

Frankly, the patents that are being passed nowadays are often vague and can even describe something as simple as "player uses the selected weapon from a first person perspective."

DangerMouse @ Mar 12th 2008 4:12PM

It's like when Creative patented an equation that was required to give Doom 3 optimal performance. John Carmack was pissed, and had to make a deal with Creative to install their EAX HD into an update of there game. Shitty thing to do, but that's business. It's a shame some companies are straight up corrupt about it, though. On the same token, it's to protect people's intellectual property, so people don't have illegally taken from them.

Sir Fidlious Wong (Zeon Defense Force) @ Mar 12th 2008 6:29PM

Copyrights are to protect an intellectual freedom. Period. A patent last only twenty years, a copyright lasts a lifetime plus 90 years. Unfortunately, constantly extending due to the Walt Disney empires fuckoffery.

But beyond that, patents do exist in design. Namely as they refer to the Coca Cola bottles distinct shape. Much of these patents that are being approved simply should not exist because they are basically a design patent which falls under a completely different ruleset. Meanwhile, companies continue to abuse an already easily exploitable patent.

There is a marked difference between steps needed to protect your copyrights and designs versus patent abuse.

rasgueado @ Mar 12th 2008 2:45PM

Guess we'll have to wait and see what the game *actually* looks like.

onesidezero2481 @ Mar 12th 2008 2:45PM

split screen is something every racing game should have and i'm so freaking glad to hear the motorstorm team has thrown it in there...

i remember seeing the demo for the first motorstorm at a target kiosk for the first time and it totally sold me on the ps3 and what it is capable of. to this day it still looks amazing and, despite its shortcomings, is still my favorite offroad racer (sorry dirt)

RoboChamp @ Mar 12th 2008 2:48PM

Drake's Fortune Racing!

PojoMofo @ Mar 12th 2008 2:50PM

I really hope there is more content packed in with this one. If so, First day buy for me

onesidezero2481 @ Mar 12th 2008 2:50PM

i agree 100%... it was so nice to see the call of duty 4 tv spot feature ACTUAL GAMEPLAY footage. and it looked so amazing! we are definitely past the point of needing cg trailers.

lets just hope those collapsable towers and other environmental interactions actually make it in-game!

Nate @ Mar 12th 2008 2:50PM

Geez, way to show your bias, Joystiq. "as opposed to being finished through patches and DLC over the course of several months"

So games that are really well supported by the developers, fixing bugs and adding a ton of content via DLC are bad? WTF? Would they be better if they *didn't* do that? Does that mean Rock Band is a bad game too?

What game hasn't had patches that was any good? When is DLC EVER a bad thing??

And I think that in this day and age, we all know the difference between pre-rendered trailers and actual videos of in-game footage. Every game company does that and no one is fooled by it, so stop trying to make it out to be this evil thing.

Yes, the lack of split screen multiplayer was a big let down, but lots of racing games do that, so it's not exactly out of the ordinary.

The game was great. The sequel, from everything I've heard, will be even better.

Maverick Saturn @ Mar 12th 2008 2:55PM

Calm down dude, trailer is kick ass, but I'm sure that even if the trailer isn't the real thing, the game itself is still bound to blow us away. Look at the last game, and think of it with improvements :)

Marry me Mario PSN: Killjebus @ Mar 12th 2008 2:59PM

Even though the Bash Sony and the PS3 wagon is almost empty, Joystiq just cannot seem to get off.

"Motorstorm 2 also promises a revolutionary new feature: "Split-screen Multiplayer" for up to four players!"

Other than flamebaiting, what possible purpose does that sentense serve? Hmmn? And people complain about what I say.

Marry me Mario PSN: Killjebus @ Mar 12th 2008 3:02PM

Maybe they prefer the Nintendo method. Re-release the SAME console and the SAME games with a few minor changes and charge FULL price for it.

Yeah, that sound much better than what Evolution Studios did.

Maverick Saturn @ Mar 12th 2008 3:02PM

Gotta admit it is true though, all games these days seem to have ditched split screen, its not just PS3 games. Its like Devs have forgotten about offline multiplayer modes.

Marty @ Mar 12th 2008 3:25PM

It's not really biased, it's true. Had Motorstorm never been patched or added to after the fact, it'd be a pretty shitty game.

Sir Fidlious Wong (Zeon Defense Force) @ Mar 12th 2008 4:07PM

If Motorstorm hadn't have been patched, only the multiplayer would have been effected. Has any game had 100% perfect multiplayer day 1? Maybe Halo 3...

So that aspect would be broken. Which would suck but I don't see anybody giving anyone else any crap when they patch multiplayer. So fixing online isn't so much a bonus as an obligation to the consumer.

But new levels and such? I'm sorry, maybe it's just me who sees a game like Forza 2 ship with 300+ cars but only 14 tracks and this is forgivable but an arcade racer ships with 8 tracks and it's fucking doomsday. Or maybe it's just my old days playing Ridge Racer and it's three tracks that keeps me from going ballistic and calling a game incomplete when it ships 8 tracks instead of 40.

Just a thought, just a playful thought.

onesidezero2481 @ Mar 12th 2008 2:51PM

that last comment was supposed to be a reply to marry me mario... not sure what happened there

flskdajfkl @ Mar 12th 2008 2:53PM

awwww look, more CGI that will look nothing like the crappy graphics in-game! way to go sony! you didn't learn the first time?

Maverick Saturn @ Mar 12th 2008 3:00PM

The only games I can think of with crappy graphics that I have played are Enter the matrix - the new game and Lair, which could have been far better, oh, and Genji was a bit dull.

Motostorm doesn't pop up on that list.

Maverick Saturn @ Mar 12th 2008 3:00PM

Thats just for PS3 btw, thought it senseless to mention games on 360 or PC or Wii.

Phranctoast @ Mar 12th 2008 3:22PM

Genji looked great. Its the gameplay and camera movement that sucked in that game.

Maverick Saturn @ Mar 12th 2008 2:52PM

They need more destruction, I don't care about the trailer, whether thats the real thing or not, I am sure the game will kick ass, the last cgi trailer shown for Motostorm wasn't real, obviously, but when the game actually released and I played it first time I was hooked, it was incredible, just lacked a lot of stuff that would make it an untouchable racer. That includes the horrible load times.

They had a lot to change to make this good, and as long as I can cause chaos on the track and still win :) I'll be happy, count me in.

Organic_Shadow @ Mar 12th 2008 2:54PM

Patches I can understand, but DLC counts as a game not being finished? I guess nextgen = unfinished games then, like everything else out there with DLC...

Maverick Saturn @ Mar 12th 2008 3:05PM

Its an excuse to release crappy games.

'Don't worry folks, we'll add the playable version later through a downloadable patch'

'We know theres no cars in the new Forza/GT/PGR, we'll release the cars in the game later through downloadable patches'

'Whats that? You don't have online capabilities? Stuff you then, you'll just have to stick with your bug filled car/character less game'

Sir Fidlious Wong (Zeon Defense Force) @ Mar 12th 2008 3:02PM

The thing that amazes me the most is this company could have easily just "phoned in" a sequel and kept the Burning Man environments. Hell, they could reuse a TON of assets that way. But they went to a completely different local with a massively different course design in it's potential. Makes me wonder just where Motorstorm 3 will take us.... I haven't glacier extreme raced since Sled Storm... are they taking request?

Maverick Saturn @ Mar 12th 2008 3:06PM

Sounds cool :) You should suggest, Motostorm in the Arctic...

Marry me Mario PSN: Killjebus @ Mar 12th 2008 3:15PM

Sledstorm was an awesome game. Vastly underated and is long overdue for a sequel. Maybe we will see some real-time weather effects also.

Where am I gonna find a money tree with enough branches to pay for all of these games. Time to check the neighborhood.

Maverick Saturn @ Mar 12th 2008 3:17PM

Thats a good idea, rain would make this all the more interesting to play ^^ How about weathers effect on the enviroment, tracks become more slippery in muddy rain water.

Matt B @ Mar 12th 2008 3:22PM

Mars with low gravity.

Maverick Saturn @ Mar 12th 2008 3:25PM

Lol, London :)

Sir Fidlious Wong (Zeon Defense Force) @ Mar 12th 2008 4:08PM

Sled Storm had a sequel, it sucked.

But yeah, I would love to tear it up in the snow again. I want Motorstorm 3 to be in the artic...

ktrotter @ Mar 12th 2008 3:09PM

Maverick, no. The game did have good graphics, but don't you remember that trailer from E3 the year before? It was pure CGI and Sony claimed that it was in-game footage. When when the game actually came out and looked like it did...it was the laughing stock of the internet for a while.

Maverick Saturn @ Mar 12th 2008 3:13PM

It was, but Genjis real time crabs and Killzone's inhuman graphics beat this down with a stick.

Lol, I wasn't rating this game based on that CGI clip, I was rating it based on the previous installment, the current Motostorm, the actual game, and the actual game has its flaws here and there, but overall its an incredible game. So I am assuming the next game will be even better, seeing as thats what sequels are supposed to be. I just want more interactive environments, destruction, and those flaws sorted out.