MotorStorm was a sweaty, dirty game. Outside of Call of Duty 4, Sony’s console-exclusive off-road racer was the number one reason to stay online. It was a hard and unforgiving bastard too. MotorStorm was also buggy and flakey. Load times would wind you up long before the occasional random collisions sent your car spinning through the air in tiny pieces, in lovingly realised cutscenes that made Burnout blush. They couldn’t be skipped. You got angry.
There’s room for improvement, which is good as it means MotorStorm 2 won’t just be a replay of the first game on a new set of tracks. Far from it. MotorStorm 2 is the sequel equivalent of a Swedish massage, the developer’s hands have spent the last 18 months thumbing out all the little issues and glitches that made MotorStorm a pain to play, then lathering up the results with a glamorous setting, new vehicles and a surprisingly deep destructible environment.