After weathering a confluence of real-world events, "MotorStorm: Apocalypse" has arrived in fine form. It's the third installment in the adrenaline-fueled MotorStorm racing series, and it's a rush.
The Japan earthquake and subsequent tsunami in March sidelined the scheduled release of "MotorStorm: Apocalypse" ($59.99, PlayStation 3), primarily because the game features off-road racing in a landscape torn apart by earthquakes and tsunamis. Sony Computer Entertainment made the right call in putting off the release for about a month.
Each "MotorStorm" title is centered on a racing festival of ragtag, foul-mouthed drivers. The vehicles include muscle cars, superbike-style motorcycles and enormous trucks that can plow over the competition.
This time the festival is held at an unnamed West Coast city that is a dead-ringer for San Francisco. I lived there for 16 years and trust me, that's the Alamo Square Park neighborhood masquerading as the "Upper Bohemia" course in the game. The landscape is littered with debris and the crumbled corners of Victorian homes that have been shaken to their foundation by massive earthquakes, many of which occur during the final lap in the races.
In the early "rookie" races of this PlayStation 3 exclusive title, I drove as Mash, a rookie recruit to this troublemaking circuit of drivers. Later I would drive as Tyler and finally as the veteran Big Dog, the expletive-spewing leader of the crew.
Those various levels didn't matter much as far as the actual in-game driving experience. It's all very pedal-to-the-metal for pretty much the entire length of each race. I'm not saying the courses are easy, but players can speed through most sections without braking.
The graphic details are impressive, especially the scenes that involve water. When there is rain pelting Big Dog in his face during a high-speed motorcycle ride, it travels up the screen realistically, as though wind and speed are pushing it up his sunglasses. When I drove through a torrent of water from a broken fire hydrant, I had to endure a few seconds of blurred vision until it cleared off my windshield.
The crush of a tsunami threatened to engulf me and a large portion of a seafront racetrack, and it grew stronger with each ensuing lap.
When I wasn't busy battling the elements of nature, I had to put up with some straggling pedestrians left aimless wandering along the side of the streets that occasionally tossed Molotov cocktails at my car and were generally being a nuisance. They were most prevalent in the underground sections where the commuter rail line ran before the earthquake took it down.
To make matters more complicated, there's a squad of security in helicopters trying to rid the city of race drivers by launching rockets at them. (Like the course wasn't tough enough.)
Probably the most impressive tracks are the ones that are located several hundred feet in the air as the rough-and-tumble collection of vehicles races on the roofs of business district skyscrapers. The buildings occasionally sway and sections collapse, which left me quickly searching for an alternate route through a glass window and into an office space only to come careening out of the other side.
"MotorStorm: Apocalypse" is racing mayhem at its finest. This isn't so much a driving simulator as it is a testament to the imagination of the game's developers at Evolution Studios. The road I drove on during the first lap crumbled away by the second. I had to drive through the skyscraper I drove around in a previous race.
It's madness, and despite being a bit easy once you get the hang of the steering physics, it's also a lot of fun. "MotorStorm: Apocalypse" is rated "T" for teen. Three out of four stars.