Saturday, October 4, 2008

Motorstorm Pacific Rift track details and screenshots

Motorstorm Pacific Rift track details and screenshots


Click for bigger cars -- brrm, brrrm!
Sony has revealed the full track list for MotorStorm Pacific Rift. The 16 levels are split between four zones, each based on an element. In the Air Zone you'll find lots of jumps, cliffs and downhill sections while the Earth Zone is a little more down to earth (get it?), with plenty of plants and undergrowth which can get in your way, hide obstacles and, apparently, fight back. In the Fire Zone you'll be faced with lava pits, volcanoes and rocky wastelands and, finally, in the Water Zone you'll find the island's coast, huge waterfalls and rivers. For a description of each of the 16 tracks, check after the break for the press release excerpt.

This should please those who found the dusty desert setting of the original MotorStorm a bit dull after a while. Pacific Rift promises to be incredibly varied, especially when you check out the tracks themselves. We've been given a huge number of screenshots to get up, including maps of most of the tracks, so check them out in the gallery below. It's definitely worth a look.

Gallery: MotorStorm Pacific Rift

Motorstorm Pacific Rift track details and screenshots

Motorstorm Pacific Rift track details and screenshots

Motorstorm Pacific Rift track details and screenshots

Motorstorm Pacific Rift track details and screenshots

Motorstorm Pacific Rift track details and screenshots


Here's the full list of 16 tracks featured in MotorStorm Pacific Rift:

Kanaloa Bay: "Sun-kissed, secluded, sandy, and slightly more treacherous than its good looks first suggest, Kanaloa Bay is a great track to be a spectator at. It's an awesome beach party with a welcome smattering of vehicular carnage running through it. But beware the dark territory beyond the lagoon – space gets real tight, real quick in that steamy jungle stretch."

Sugar Rush: "Only MotorStormers would think to stage a race in and around an old sugar plantation. The sharp machinery and rusty metal, those rust-weakened floors and rotten walls, and the zero-visibility of the cane fields all combine to make this track a sickly-sweet rush that's going to ruin more than just your teeth."

Mudslide: "The clue's largely in the title: Mudslide is like one of those crazy rides you get at water parks, except with mud instead of water. Still, there's plenty of slip-slidey action to engage in, with high routes available for those of you without the tires to tackle the mud."

Cascade Falls: "Dense jungle, thick with haze, gives way to wide-open plateaus and rickety scaffold. The tropical setting makes for a fascinating blend of beauty and danger – much like my ex-wife. The key to success is to keep it honest – don't take any unnecessary risks, and don't get caught making out behind the start gantry."

Beachcomber: "The black sand is evidence of the awesome power of nature, created by lava flowing into the ocean which explodes as it is supercooled by the water. The WWII airbase and the unexploded bombs are evidence of the awesome destructive power of man. The sheer carnage created when these are combined is evidence of the awesome power of the MotorStorm. Let battle commence!"

Colossus Canyon: "This track has it all – beautiful forest, vibrant fauna, and a picturesque mountain stream that courses through a narrow gorge, over brook and water-meadow, and plummets over an enormous waterfall. Let's face it; if you're only going to accidentally plummet over one giant precipice in your MotorStorm career, this is the one to do it on. Today is a good day to fly."

Caldera Ridge: "The race organizers looked long and hard to find some driveable routes here, but in the end decided it'd be more fun driving vehicles over the edge of an enormous crater and barrelling out-of-control down a near-vertical slope. And that's exactly why the race organizers don't get invited to make race tracks for anyone else. Ever."

Badlands: "A giant track, racing at the feet of a giant cinder cone, Badlands has a name that's perfectly descriptive. Wait until you see the enormous active crater you need to jump over, or the blind, sheer precipices you need to tear round at high speed if you're to have any chance of winning. And let's not get into the collapsed tunnels and the huge canyon jump that crosses the track 75 feet in the air. These are MotorStorm lands. These are Badlands."

The Edge: "There's at least half a track here that isn't ridiculously dangerous. The other half is on a camber so extreme that descriptions like 'gnarly', 'radical' and 'utterly ridiculous' don't begin to convey it. This is all about keeping traction, and keeping nerve. Seasoned MotorStormers are already declaring 'Don't lose your bottle on the Edge – because if you do it'll probably fall and kill someone half a mile below you". Wise words indeed."

Paradise Beach: "Paradise Beach was perfect. Clear skies, gentle surf, warm water. It was a small town, and the living was good. Was, that is, until 30 years ago when the fire-God Pele cruised into town in his fiery hotrod of molten death, and literally tore up the strip. Now all that remains is dust and bones. Welcome to Paradise."

The Rift: "The Rift: a mile-long tear in the world that is said to be the serpentine trail to the dark underworld of the God Milu. Formed from multiple interlinking lava tubes created over millennia, the Rift is a tight, claustrophobic journey through the jaws of the underworld, where death awaits the wearied traveler at every turn."

Scorched: "Fire, steam, lava, craters – Scorched is about as far away from the golden beaches and cool blue ocean as possible. The heat and dust make a real mess of your engine, and the lava will make a real mess of you. Once you're out of the barren lands, you may think you've escaped unharmed, but the thick forested area on the back section of the track throws up plenty of its own unique hazards."

Razorback: "The Daddy. Mud, dirt, flora, caves, rock, water. Deadly drop-offs, dangerous jumps, spectacular falls and fast-flowing rivers. This is the big one – the whole MotorStorm ethos showcased in a single, epic track. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, your time to shine is now."

Rain God Spires: "A humid, slippery, unfeasibly dangerous track set at the summit of a towering cathedral amongst heavy, pendulous tropical clouds. With immense slick precipices over immense drop-offs, Rain God brings hell to the Heavens and provides one of the Festival's most dangerous and deadly roller-coaster rides."

Wildfire: "Trapped in no-man's land between a deadly lava deluge and an unforgiving ocean, Wildfire is the rock between two hard places - a very temporary island-hopping race over the elemental battlefield where fire and water collide. Smoke and steam conspire to reduce race visibility to a minimum while the route screams along perilous cliff-edges and leaps across rifts and chasms."

Riptide: "The crowd-pleaser down on the beach, Riptide is the unholy offspring of MotoX and MotorStorm. From MotoX it has inherited ramps, big jumps, whoops, rollers, tight banked turns and technical hairpins, and from MotorStorm its blue eyes, cute little button nose and sandy complexion."