MotorStorm - hands-on

So let's back up a bit, and set the scene. Picture a rocky, sandy, craggy mesa scattered with dry brush and flaming wreckage. You're racing against a pack of psychos in jeeps and on bikes, hitting ramps, flying into the air, and generally screwing with each other. In the post-Burnout world, who cares if your car literally blows up or goes spiraling hundreds of feet to its doom? Seconds later, you'll be magically revived and ready to race. Some of the track offered multiple pathways: down below for more jumps; up above for the relative safety of not being next to that long, long drop.

The game may not live up to the fakery Sony has been showing off- including the brand-new images in this article -but it's still a looker. For a little while we were actually happy to go sliding off the course into the great beyond because it all looked so damn good: that huge, huge view was compelling. The novelty of dying did wear off, but the graphics - which by rights, should almost be dull, since it was mostly sand and rocks - never got old.