MotorStorm and BIA demos on PSN

By Tom Bramwell Published 17 October, 2008

DLC for TW09, EoJ, other abbreviations.

Sony has updated the PlayStation Store with PS3 demos of MotorStorm: Pacific Rift and Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway, neither of which ask you for a penny.

The MotorStorm demo (617MB) features the Rain God Spires track and can be played offline on your own or with a friend in split-screen.

We're not sure what's in the Brothers in Arms demo, despite scouring the Sony US blog to dig up the post when it came out there two weeks ago (interesting detail: 1.21GB), and the Ubisoft website and that. What we do know is it's the same as the 360 one.

Besides those two, there's some downloadable add-ons for Eye of Judgement ("Set 3", which goes for GBP 6.99 / EUR 9.99, and Biolith Rebellion SET.2 and SET.3 Combo Pack for GBP 10.49 / EUR 14.99), and the Firestone Country Club for Tiger Woods 09 (GBP 4.99 / EUR 7.99).

Rock Band fans, meanwhile, can content themselves with Motley Crue's Dr Feelgood album, for which individual tracks are GBP 0.99.

Finally, there's a Killzone 2 multiplayer theme and Far Cry 2, PAIN and Tom Clancy's EndWar trailers.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (34) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Widge #1 3 years ago

    and apparently if you DL the Killzone theme, you may get flagged for the Beta.

  • sailesh #2 3 years ago

    yeaa.. didn't think much of the motorstorm demo. t'was boringzzz

  • Darren #3 3 years ago

    There's not much of interest for me on either the EU or US PS Store this week as I already had the MotorStorm PR demo from a code Sony sent me a month or so back (the demo icon on the store is depicted as already having been downloaded so I presume it is the same build) and I tried the Brothers in Arms HH demo a week or two back from the US Store. Not that I'm complaining, mind, as there are plenty of game to be getting on with anyway! :)

    The US Store does have some very nice free themes though for Silent Hill: Homecoming and Eternal Sonata along with individual wallpapers for both games too. The theme and wallpapers for the latter are especially nice, particularly as the game's artwork is so beautiful anyway. There's also a Valkyrie Chronicles one but I thought it looked a bit naff and blurry. Still all free so one shouldn't complain. :)

  • superjag86 #4 3 years ago

    yeah it wasn't as fun as the PURE demo

  • saku_luk #5 3 years ago

    BiA demo *sigh* I got it from US store some time ago and it had some frame drops during cutscenes....which is bad....

  • Harrihotpants #6 3 years ago

    re. motorstorm, not sure why they chose a track that effectively looked and played just like the first game, a more tropical themed track would have made more sense. Thought the emonster trucks were fun though and it didn't seem to suffer the same frame rate drops that kept cropping up in the first one.....

  • Widge #7 3 years ago

    Can always hope the BIA frame drops aren't in the full game. I found the Bioshock intro had a bit of stutter that is fully gone from the retail version.

  • Doctor_What #8 3 years ago

    More Singstar needed! Come on Sony London!

  • Widge #9 3 years ago

    More of the same is fine for me with Motorstorm, no need to tinker with the formula. Just pure off road racing fun!

  • Beano #10 3 years ago

    "yeaa.. didn't think much of the motorstorm demo. t'was boringzzz "

    I agree... but remember: the demo is 100% the same as the demo on Qore last month and is based on a old beta build and the dull level is not showing the new gameplay elements (fire, lava, water, etc).
    According to the 1UP podcast, the later builds are MUCH better looking.
    Edited by 1 at 17/10/08 @ 10:03

  • GamesConnoisseur #11 3 years ago

    Then should probably not have released this demo if its giving wrong impression, as I was playing it last night, could not help but be disappointed by bland textures especially on the first sector stretch, and I did not seem to be as frustrated as I was playing on the first motorstorm! Tried all three vechicles and did have some fun but very samey and got stuck on some rocks a few times!

    Still will hope that the later builds realise the potential better and ramp up the gameplay pleasures.
    Edited by 1 at 17/10/08 @ 10:06

  • menage #12 3 years ago

    @Harrihotpants

    I agree.

    Why do demos always feature lame environments. It's like they want to save some of the coolest shit for the game. Which is fine as an idea, but doesn't sell me the game.

    Just look at SW Force Unleashed. Lame factory Death star setting, Blue Dragon, whoa, factory level. This, gray rocky level, etc.


  • Widge #13 3 years ago

    At least the rolling vids look like a whole world of a different game!

  • Stuz359 #14 3 years ago

    Does anyone else think the handling on the new Motorstorm is slightly off. The first one handled much better.

  • degville #15 3 years ago

    Motorstorm the vehicles almost seem to hang in the air during a jump.. it seems really odd but i think its a trick of the camera zooming during the jump but it really feels like the game goes into slow motion most odd experience

  • Beano #16 3 years ago

    "Then should probably not have released this demo if its giving wrong impression..."

    I agree. A bad way of selling the game.

  • bodypopper #17 3 years ago

    Re: Motorstorm 2. Bikes that hover over the ground when they move and 'toy' cars that appear to have little real weight leading to easy crashes and flip overs? It's like the last decade of gaming never happened.

  • Artemis_Matsas #18 3 years ago

    Yesterday i had a lot of trouble accessing the Playstation Store. Instead of the Store, i had an error code popping.
    Did anyone else had problems?

  • peterfll #19 3 years ago

    ^

    Yes, we all had problems. And 80020317 is Sony saying in hexadecimal "sorry, the service is unavailable, please try again later". It's just easier to display 80020317 as it uses less characters, it more succinct and to the point.

  • Beano #20 3 years ago

    @bodypopper : Its a beta.

  • stampax #21 3 years ago

    Motorstorm demo is superb. Relly fun enjoyable stuff. Not convinced it would keep me going for long enough to justify a 40 quid outlay, but for more like 25 or 30 i'll buy it. First time in ages i've played a demo that has almost got me ready to get my wallet out.

  • dahsif #22 3 years ago

    wow, that was a poor update, SONY. In every sense of the word.

  • menage #23 3 years ago

    Just give me my sexy Ivy schoolgirl outfits goddammit.

  • stampax #24 3 years ago

    dahsif - why is that a poor update? A demo of a highly anticipated game and another fairly big release surely is quite good. Do people have too high expectations?
    Id be more than happy with two demo's every week.

  • BOBBYLUPO #25 3 years ago

    Compared to some of the past updates we've had, they appear to have finally stepped their game up a bit. Seems a bit churlish to call it a crap update.

  • HiddenAway #26 3 years ago

    There was some "unscheduled maintenance" on the network last night. Store was down because of it.

  • Beano #27 3 years ago

    The update was poor in the sense that no new PSN games was available. I was hoping for Age Of Booty but this has just been delayed to november :(

  • Beano #28 3 years ago

    @HiddenAway: Yes the PS Store was down a few hours yesterday. PSN was still up though and possible to play online.

  • dominalien #29 3 years ago

    The Motorstorm demo is pretty impressive, imo. How many frames per second is the game supposed to run at? I think I read somewhere it was 30 fps, but the demo seems a lot more responsive for me than that. Not 60 fps, but it looked faster than 30.

    Maybe they're doing some jingamig to make it look like it's faster than it actually is.

    EDIT:
    Oh, and on the Polish store the Motorstorm demo sometimes appears on the main page, but it doesn't appear at all in the Latest category. They must have had some serious problems with the Store yesterday ;-)
    Edited by 1 at 17/10/08 @ 12:03

  • Artemis_Matsas #30 3 years ago

    Thanks for the replies. It's nice to know that it wasn't just me.

  • Zomoniac #31 3 years ago

    Has anyone noticed since getting 2.50 the store opens and loads thumbnails about 20x quicker?

  • Andee #32 3 years ago

    @Zomoniac: I actually thought the store seems slower to load since the update.

  • Darren #33 3 years ago

    It's always been fairly fast for me (apart from the first few days after it came out!) but since the update it is faster, yes.

    @dominalien - MotorStorm ran at 30 fps so I presume the sequel does too, feels the same to me. The use of motion-blurring probably hides it as it did with PGR 3 and 4 on the 360, also 30 fps games. I did see tearing in the first game from time to time so I don't think the game is always locked at 30 fps but disables v-sync if the framerate threatens to drop too low. I suspect it will be the same in the sequel too, especially as it will have 2-4 player split screen modes.

  • DJSlime #34 3 years ago

    Motorstorm 2 was decent, although the handling needs tweaking.

    They should of allowed bikes to flip, which is the only thing that was missing in the 1st.