In an interview with GI.biz, Sony's Michael Denny says that, while the two studios currently share the same management, the two will eventually be smooshed together to share the same building. Which, if even if they didn't officially merge the pair as something like SCEE Vroom Vroom, would result in enough movement of staff between the two that our last, thread-bare link to Psygnosis (as SCEE Liverpool were known as in a former life) would be gone forever.

Sony's Michael Denny - Part Two [GI.biz]

Oh yeah. And it was created before the dev team had received official hardware specifications from Sony. Being told that they were "the worst [of Sony's first-party developers] in the world" by former Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios head Phil Harrison probably didn't help.

"They actually announced the hardware specifications on a slide show presentation," Hollywood said in a newly published video interview. "We sat and jotted them down... and then they showed us our movie. So it was like, 'This is what the PlayStation 3 can do, and this is what you're gonna get on it.' And we sat there trying to do the math in our head, going 'Can we really do this stuff that we're doing now?'"

"Nobody denied it. Nobody said it wasn't in-game," Kershaw said of the PS3 target render.

Fortunately, it sounds like some harsh words from Phil Harrison helped the team tap turn out a pretty damn good racer. Shame it didn't quite look like that first glimpse...

"We showed MotorStorm to the board of Sony in November 2005. So basically, the infamous E3 video had been out, so there's all these expectations about the rendering prowess that we were going to expose... and we showed them a lot of boxes," Hollywood explained. "At the end of the show, Phil Harrison took us to one side and said, 'You guys are the worst in the world....' At that point we went, 'Right, we'll show you.'"

Kershaw further details the team's perspective on the controversial E3 2005 trailer: "But it's this thing that haunts you, that you didn't match your target render.... Everybody makes such a big fucking deal of it. Who gives a shit? That's how we make games. If people have got a problem with that, tough."

Nigel Kershaw On How MotorStorm's Original Target Video "Pissed Us Off a Lot" [1UP]

This year’s MotorStorm: Pacific Rift conjures up an unnamed Pacific island as the festival setting, and brings to it an extremely destructive nonnative species called the Monster Truck. Is one more vehicle class, double the tracks and an even more exotic location enough to carry MotorStorm’s legacy forward? Or is it a beefed up track-pack rehash? Let’s go ride out the storm.

Loved
Island paradise: If this island existed, I can’t imagine why humans would abandon it. Definitely a worthy successor to Monument Valley, and then some. The first MotorStorm was a single setting: the desert. Here the course artists work in much more complex vegetation and terrain features. Where courses include human construction, it is brilliantly blended with the surroundings to look abandoned, improvised, or overtaken by nature, wherever appropriate. Doing this for 720p is an achievement, no question. Sugar Rush, set in an old cane plantation, is a favorite of many. Caldera Ridge’s twin observatories above a rocky, skidding plunge, was also one of mine. Colossus Canyon was breathtaking. There are any number of fantasylands in video games that I wish I could visit. This one is easily tops among the racing genre.

Sixteen-Course Meal: One of the MotorStorm franchise’s many strengths is how it can supply a course experience that is rarely the same no matter how many times you drive it. Real time course degradation and permanent debris scatter are back in Pacific Rift. You race at three different times of day, and the exceptional lighting for each can be its own course hazard and eventually weather comes into play, too. But the new 16 long, expansive courses, with alternate routes that are either concealed or not immediately obvious, truly are a cut above. The only hints you get are signs marking fatal hazards, arrows when you’re reaching a course boundary, and double poles that frame big jump locations. Even after playing all 16 course 10 times each, I still don’t feel like I know the entire course, much less all the optimal routes for my preferred vehicle class. You’re continuously discovering things, such as the gun emplacement just before a big jump in the Beach Comber, which becomes a spinning hazard if anyone ahead of you hits it.

Jump in the Fire: The game features four zones: Earth, Air, Fire and Water, with four courses each, and each of them subject to a zone’s unique hazards. Air, of course, is full of huge jumps and soaring cliffs. The most notably hostile environment is fire, which races you next to lava fountains and mudflows. You’ll spend a lot of time on fire and your boost overheat gauge will erupt in flames, but all it means is you look that much more awesome when you soar a half-mile through the air and land on some piece of shit dirtbiker. Fire is also an extremely challenging zone for the motorcycle, where you have to race technically perfect just to survive.

Wrecks — Others: Watching the real time destruction of your competitors up ahead of you is a fists-up experience, especially when those great big Optimus Prime-looking MFers finally get theirs. The debris path is impressive and, if you’re in it, hazardous enough unto itself. In eliminator races the carcasses of previous victims will still be on the track when you circle back around. Anything hit and scattered will be right where it came to a rest. And nothing beats jousting with a similar vehicle at breakneck speeds, beating it to a jump, and looking back to see it plunge off a cliff. This game simply would not have its level of joyous mayhem without its well rendered wrecks, rolls, disintegrations and explosions.

Hated
Wrecks — Yours: This is more like “not loved.” You play a racer of this type (not super realistic, in other words) for two reasons, the thrill of the run when you’re winning, and spectacular destruction when you fail. And the wreck physics and animations for your vehicle are hit or miss. A full-on wreck begins in slow motion, so you can see the crumpling of your car body, the struts and shocks shooting out the front, sheet metal flaking off — and then what happens next is a crap shoot. Sometimes you just come to a dead unsatisfying stop. On ATVs or motorcycles, your rider can go straight up in the air, unrealistically. Overheating explosions are the best way to go, sending you into a tumbling fireball. But I’ve also been in slow rollovers that somehow end with the vehicle almost completely flattened, because that’s what the Havok engine called for. A good death would encourage me to watch and stay in the race; a bad one makes me restart.

Artificial Competitiveness: Rubber-band AI seems to be a part of this title, although a little less conspicuously. I can’t empirically prove it because it’s difficult to race the exact same route with the same time to see if it produces different finishes. But on the whole, I definitely feel like I can win this with less than my best stuff, especially by sitting on the boost button at the end. Conversely, on some courses (especially Riptide) where I know I can get to the lead quickly and hold it, I’ll still have the field hot on my ass the whole way no matter how fast my vehicle. This makes you very unprepared for online ranked matches — I was routinely smoked by more experienced racers going all out and had zero chance to catch up about halfway in.

Vehicle variety: I wasn’t really sold on the Monster Truck, which is new. Sure, it’s a lot of fun and will crush anything other than a big rig, but this might be one you bring out when you’re racing with friends in the room, rather than you sled of choice in Festival or online mode. Crunching up smaller vehicles in the bottleneck starting a race just seems unfair. Getting crunched by one in the same situation online is extremely unfair. And online, where flat-out speed is demanded every second, you'll roll over a ton, so it's far from an automatic winner. There are notable contrasts between the vehicle classes — play them enough and you’ll get a feel for it, and Festival mode will require you to drive everything at least once. But where options existed I usually chose the buggy or the racing truck as an all-around performer, not venturing out of that comfort zone if I could help it. The unlockable vehicle bodies seemed to be another thing that’s better on others than you. It creates a wide variety in the racing field, which makes it visually interesting. But the vehicle class will perform the same regardless of skin. It made the vehicle packs and, for that matter, driver get-ups, seemed more like an afterthought to me, rather than anything I strove to earn.

I know I didn’t really mention the soundtrack. I’m no music critic. It wasn’t striking enough to be loved, wasn’t bad enough to be hated. Nothing seems out of place but it definitely competes with the engine whine, explosions, splashes, and collisions. I think I have an automatic noise reducer on my TV because things would occasionally get so loud the volume would drop, like it thought I was watching some screaming used-car advertisement. Keep this in mind.

One of the drawbacks of reviewing games is, even when you’re on a good one, you have to play it so extensively it kills a desire to go back in later. Not MotorStorm: Pacific Rift. This will be a go-to title for me when I have a half-hour to kill and don’t want to get involved in a deep RPG or shooter. It will definitely be a game I trot out when friends come over and want to fool around with something, as the learning curve is really shallow for gamers of all abilities.

If you visited Monument Valley and loved your time there, the Pacific Rift is well different enough to warrant a trip. And that’s besides the implied drinkin’, fightin’, dancin’ and yes, crazy monkey sex in this rambunctious festival of destruction.

MotorStorm: Pacific Rift was developed by Evolution Studios, published by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. Released on Oct. 28 in North America, Nov. 7 in Europe for PlayStation 3. Reviewed on PlayStation 3. Retails for $59.99. Raced all 16 tracks, all eight vehicle classifications, and all race types. Raced and placed in 50 of 96 events in Festival mode. Participated in six ranked matches online.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

The game's director, Nigel Kershaw, tells CVG that the team has new goodies expected to digitally ship via the PlayStation Store "in the coming months," that "major packs" will hit the new Motorstorm sometime after Christmas. So hurry up and wait.

MotorStorm 2: Weekly DLC planned, some free [CVG]

Instead of mud, rocks, dust and the occasional cliff, MotorStorm 2 will feature natural hazards like "tangled undergrowth, swift flowing rivers, choking volcanic clouds and searing lava pools." Sounds just fantastic. The official release on the matter talks up an Autumn release, arriving with a "host of game modes and rewards." Now about those vehicle loading times...

We're waiting patiently for our issue of OPM to arrive with the smattering of details, but if the countdown clock on ThreeSpeech is accurate, we'll probably see the goods within the next 48 hours or so.

Motorstorm 2 to have monster trucks, plus more water [PS3Forums via N4G]

This "behind the scenes" look at the upcoming PLAYSTATION 3 racer Motorstorm may be little more than a 2 minute commercial for the game, but the included footage and reference gathering moments are worth checking out. Less appetizing? Quotes from Motorstorm creative lead Paul Hollywood who boasts of "something that looks more real than real life" and of "special effects that you've only ever seen in a Hollywood film before" when describing his game. Paul, they're gonna rip you apart!

Since I don't have the ability to determine whether something is more real than real life and since his description of Motorstorm's texturing by "boomp" mapping is just so adorable, I just can't stay mad at him. Michael McWhertor

Gimme an "M"!

Guys, can I get that "M"? Fine. Forget it! Hi, it's me, the resident MotorStorm cheerleader, with another post about how great I think MotorStorm will be. Today's post is about the ThreeSpeech blog's video visit to Evolution Studios in which the devs talk about the genesis of their PlayStation 3 dirt track racer.

From lighting to car deformation to mud deformation to AI, they're clearly pretty pleased with themselves.

We have a basic AI system, which is basically the ability for an AI vehicle to race around the track really effectively. But on top of that we add an extra layer, which is what we call the "gag system." In MotorStorm terms, a gag can be anything from a guy on a bike flipping you the bird as he drives past you through to gangs of vehicles teaming up on you to drive you into the dust and make an absolute smelch of you on the ground.

Smelch?! Wuzzat? Must be some cool new MotorStorm thing! Can't wait to try it! Check out the video at the "unofficial" PlayStation blog then come back here and beg my forgiveness for ever doubting Our Holy MotorStorm! Michael McWhertor

BEHIND THE SCENES WITH MOTORSTORM AT EVOLUTION STUDIOS