Sony unveils MotorStorm 2

By Tom Bramwell Published 13 March, 2008

16-player online, first rendered trailer.

Sony has officially unveiled MotorStorm 2 with a brief trailer and some information echoing the stuff leaked earlier this week, and says it's out on Blu-ray this autumn.

The trailer, which you can see on the SCEA blog, is comprised of rendered footage - something Sony has confirmed to Eurogamer - and is designed to give us an idea of where we'll be going in this one.

The answer to that question being, as the press release puts it, a "solitary tropical paradise in the Pacific Ocean", rather than the previous game's MotorStorm Festival in Monument Valley. This new location throws up very different tracks with "thick swamps, dense jungle, towering peaks and steaming volcanoes" to traverse.

Developer Evolution has carved 16 tracks out of the "thick mud, tangled undergrowth, swift flowing rivers, choking volcanic clouds and searing lava pools" to test you, and you will be able to race through them using all the original vehicle classes along with a new one, monster trucks.

The presence of water should be interesting, given that the scale of the vehicles differs greatly and it's easy to imagine that - just as bikes are more suited to tight squeezes and shortcut paths suspended in the air - so some will struggle to progress through water more than others.

MotorStorm will continue to work online, too, with 16-player online racing support for game number two, as well as four-player split-screen racing offline. Sony is known to be pushing integrated web-based services like SingStarGame.com a lot harder this year, too, so while there's no specific mention of a web service we wouldn't put that past anyone there either, particularly given MotorStorm's history of long-term online gaming support.

The final thing to say is that Sony refers to the game as MotorStorm 2, but adds that the final name is still to-be-confirmed. So it could end up being called BarryStorm, or something. Look out for more details on BarryStorm soon.

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 (19) Latest comment 4 years ago

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  • Darren #1 4 years ago

    Uh-oh... a pre-rendered trailer... I'm not falling for that one again! LOL

  • Darren #2 4 years ago

    I couldn't resist and I watched it... looks exciting but I'll eat my (chocolate) hat if the actual game looks that good and runs smoothly with no tearing! LOL

    Still the feature spec is impressive... 16 tracks with multiple routes, a 4-player splitscreen mode and 16 players online.... it sounds like the game the original should have been. I'm really looking forward to playing this "complete" version and at least the scenery promises to be far more interesting than the dull desert environments of the first game.

  • Steroyd #3 4 years ago

    4 player splitscreen eh?

  • lambtron #4 4 years ago

    "Uh-oh... a pre-rendered trailer... I'm not falling for that one again! LOL"

    Hehe - you couldn't make this stuff up :).

  • JediMasterMalik #5 4 years ago

    They're not trying to fool you. People don't get pissy at other developers for using CGI in teaser trailers, no need to get pissy here. Personally, the trailer was just ok, but the promise of the game features has me excited.

  • zuljin #6 4 years ago

    Are people complaining about the trailer, seriously? By all means have a go if there is no mention of whether its pre rendered or not, but they've happily admitted to that.

    Ofcourse you have to build hype to a game, to get people excited about it. So the obvious choice is something prerendered when the game itself is, you know, not yet finished!

  • lambtron #7 4 years ago

    Yeah JMM pretty much everyone hates pre-rendered trailers, regardless of platform or genre, except of course marketing bods.

  • jlaakso #8 4 years ago

    Looks a lot more fun than the original. I appreciate that they've apparently taken a leaf out of Flatout's recipe with the destructible structures.

  • kangarootoo #9 4 years ago

    "Rendered trailers should be banned. BANNED!"

    Pish and tish. Rendered trailers that pretend to be gameplay should perhaps be banned, but no secret is being made of this being redered whatsoever, so whats the problem?

    The actual gameplay of MS2 was pretty close to the previous rendered trailer, so I would expect the same thing here. I apply my common sense and make my own judgement.

    Banned indeed. What exactly is it you need protecting from?
    Edited by 1 at 13/03/08 @ 09:41

  • JediMasterMalik #10 4 years ago

    Well, if CG is hated as much as you claim, then it's just stupidity. It's pretty damned easy to tell the difference betwen a CGI trailer, and something that is real-time with gameplay. I don't think anyone in their right mind would look at this trailer and claim it was anything other than CGI, so I have no problem with it.

  • penhalion #11 4 years ago

    I hope the 16 tracks do not consist of "track X reverse" 8 times. I want 16 actual bloody individual tracks and then those same 16 reversed giving me 32 race venues not 8 with 8 reversed......just saying

  • mode7 #12 4 years ago

    @penhalion - i don't think fewer tracks is a bad thing, i'd prefer 8 really well designed tracks rather than 16 half baked ones.

  • Aloominum_man #13 4 years ago

    'out on Blu-ray this autumn'

    What the hell else is it likely to be on?

  • monkie_king #14 4 years ago

    You don't expect Sony to miss an opportunity to mention Blu-ray, do you? I hear Blu-ray is the disc format in PS3. Blu-ray, that's right.

    I think Nintendo and MS should start doing the same ... "out this Autumn on Digital Versatile Disc".

  • JediMasterMalik #15 4 years ago

    I think they mention BD in every press release, it wouldn't surprise me either way.

  • McLovin85 #16 4 years ago

    i would love for Evolution Studios to come out with a statement of

    'yup, this trailer is 100% in-game and u will cream urself when u first play it'

    but alas i don't think we quite have that sort of technology yet.

  • BadBoyBonner #17 4 years ago

    As far as I am aware of recent times Motostorm is the ONLY driving game to mainly use pre-rendered footage - with everyone else using actual footage. A strange decision but it seems to get them noticed and unfortunately hoodwink half the less savvy public in the process - which seems morally questionable. Good job their games are quite good to make up for the "trickery".
    Edited by 1 at 13/03/08 @ 11:08

  • Apostle #18 4 years ago

    Gonna be interesting how they've designed the maps with the massive monster trucks in mind. Jeez it was hard enough on yer bike against the big rigs! I'm steering well clear of these new monsters.

    Not fussed about the fact the trailer is CG. I played MS1 so I know the visuals are more than compelling, and should even look better. I'm happy with that.

  • smelly #19 4 years ago

    I love the "out on blu ray this autumn" stuff.

    They never said "out on dvd this autumn" did they?