Motorstorm: Arctic Edge for the PSPGo ... and huds

HUDs or Heads Up Displays traditionally are tools employed by video game developers to inform the player of various status changes within the game. Changes that occur, for example, to the game score, time elapsed, health or ammunition remaining, etc. are displayed in a manner befitting the type of game they are in usually around the periphery of the main playing area and, when done right, can enhance the play experience.
I really like HUDs at times like when they are very creatively 'written into' the core game experience (Dead Space's backpack mounted health bar and Metroid Prime's visor projection of status being a ... prime example). If not they just tend to get in my way and distract. 

Dead Space. No radar. No High Score. Just a perfectly placed, if slightly outdated, health bar.

Metroid Prime. HUD information that is easily accessible, necessary, and unobtrusive. Not to mention completely customisable as to be invisible if you so wish.

If I get shot in the arm in real life I would imagine that the lack of a health bar wouldn't stop me from realising that I was injured, and exactly how much I was injured, too. If I was in a real life war situation, I am unlikely to run in the direction of the enemy thinking 'yeah, I can take a couple more bullet hits before I take cover'. But, in games, aside from attaching something terrible and probably electric from each of my nerve endings to the console, I need a visual guide to let me know that I have taken a hit and I need to recover. A blood-red flash, a blurry camera shake. That's all I need. I've got enough of a sense of self-preservation about me, even in the virtual world, to get my head down for a few seconds before my next gung-ho moment. A diminishing health bar is a video game trope that needs to be consigned to Room 101 as soon as possible. Yes, alright, the 'reality vs fun' argument can be, and has been, argued for years, but if we can close the gap a little more while still retaining the fun and the challenge then I'm all for it. The adoption, almost completely across the FPS board, of the regenerating health bar first (?) seen in Halo is demonstration of this shift in focus from fun to real, fuelled in no small part to the almost photo-realism of the graphics inevitably squeezing that gap ever closer.

Halo. Tasteful and sparse HUD, but still  more than the requisite information floating around distractedly. Ammo display on the weapon, eyes on the reticule, occasional glances to the health bar in the heat of battle but otherwise, superfluous. 

So, that's how I feel about HUDs. Which, rather neatly, leads me directly into why I haven't given a racing game more than a week of my attention since Super Mario Kart in 1992. So, about twenty years, then, since I really got sucked into a racer (not including original Wipeout as I have previously mentioned, but more on that later). That racer being Super Mario Kart on the equally super Nintendo. I still genuinely beleive that if I were challenged by a person who was widely considered a SMK 'champion', I would roundly and efficiently kick his or her arse all over Ghost Valley 2 and Bowser Castle 3. I mastered that game, and it took well over a year before it was just no fun to play against me. Those people that know every Fatality and even every Friendship combo in Mortal Kombat? I was the Super Mario Kart equivalent. If you got into a kart next to me then you had better have brought a toothpick because you would have been dislodging virtual dirt from your teeth for days afterwards (or something a bit less macho and annoying).



Super Mario Kart. Fast.


So, what's my big racing game turn off? Flipping speedometers. Never have I been made more aware of how fast I am definitely not going, or rather, I should say, how completely unlike this virtual experience of driving is compared to the real thing it is trying, and failing to emulate. There have been too many med/high-profile examples, (Cruis'n USA or any N64 racer, actually: Metropolis Street Racer, and, yes, Gran Turismo) where I have just not experienced the sensation of speed that, according to the speedo, i should be. I'm not closed-minded enough to believe that there are no good racers that feature a speedo but  I buy into the premise that the inclusion of such a convention says a lot about the type of racer that features it. Racers that include the speedometer are, in my recent experience, stat heavy games that rely on the players' knowlegde of carburettors and spark plugs in order to progress well. Give me 'Boost Upgrade #1' any day of the week. There should never be a time when, to reaffirm how fast I am going, I am expected to take my eyes off the road to look at the offending dial. To refer to my earlier example, either I'm getting shot, or I'm not. 

Either I'm going fast, or I'm not.

And Motor Storm: Arctic Edge for the PSP is going fast, without feeling the need to tell me about it in a different way other than catapulting scenery past me at a rate that deserves every tear from my unblinking eyes.



Unashamedly an 'Extreme Sports' game in every way other than the ways that annoy me, MS:AE features only the conventions of the sub-genre that matter to the game: thrilling races with a real sense of danger. There are no wacky one-liners from inappropriately dressed extreme character stereotypes with improbable hair. Avatar posturing is kept to a minimum and, if I'm honest, mostly done by me. Upon buying a game of this ilk (from SSX all the way to Burnout), my first port of call is usually the options menu to hang the damn DJ by disabling Radio Big or Awesome Gnarly FM or whatever the developers think kids listen to these days. MS:AE shaved literally seconds off my set-up time by featuring no such thing. The soundtrack is predictably Rad, with obsure punk, ironic metal and maybe one hip-hop track from an artist you have never heard of (MC Mack Z feat. Skizzy Dog T... probably) but they blend well with the game action and, anyway, as with most PSP games the option is there to replace the soundtrack with something more to the tastes of the player if so desired. Suggestion: Andrew Lloyd Webber musical ballads add a sinister 'In The Air Tonight' vibe that compliments the action perfectly. It's quite a juxtaposition.

There are options, of course to 'pimp' your 'ride', but thankfully, apart from earning you a badge (read: achievement), and giving a multiplayer identity, it's not essential and doesn't earn the player any 'respect points'. What really stood out for me was that in MS:AE there is never any sense of not being in the thick of it during a race. Even when a good 60-90 seconds has been spent in first place, there is always breath on your neck. Nothing puts me off a racer more than screaming so far ahead of the pack that it feels like I'm in time trial mode all by myself. The tiniest mistake in Motor Storm could cost you a few places, if not the whole race. That isn't to say the game is unfair. Snow bikes and skidoos battering your stricken rider as they mercilessly drive past, or over, you while he eats snow would be especially annoying were this not a level playing field which, in lots of ways, it is. Your opponents take chances too, and make mistakes. Lots of them. It's very satisfying to see a particular foil explode, thanks to a mis-judged boost, in a shower of sponsor stickers metres ahead, and smashing through his wreckage feels like beautiful payback but it's difficult to shake off the feeling that you have just earned your next side-swipe off a cliff in a future race.



Jockeying for position in confined spaces, like this bobsled run, produce some of the games more edge-of-the-seat moments. It's also fun to introduce vehicles that could not be further removed from a bobsled into that territory. 


These opponents are ruthless bully's who care little about racing lines, less about themselves and, if possible, even less about you. The key to winning races is realising this as soon as possible. Each track features many different paths that are suited more or less to the vehicle in your command. A skilled bike rider can streak past the pack using narrow ledges and ramps: the improbably massive but deceptively speedy Nordic Warrior earth mover, on the other hand, is more suited to lower ground, travelling over more difficult terrain such as deeper snow that would clog up and slow down the bikes or straight 'destruction derby' style souped up bangers. Not forgetting that if any such light vehicle should get in this monsters path, the best way to the front is to bully your way straight through, earth mover style: nimble manouvers are not the Nordic Warriors' strength, but each track caters to each vehicle well enough to make the small track selection (only twelve although they can be played in reverse) feel much more varied.

The core of Motorstorm: Arctic Edge is set out much like that of many other racing games so it should come as no surprise when I say that at the beginning of Festival (the career mode) you take your chosen avatar through a series of races in an assortment of vehicles with a variety of objectives in the quest to earn enough points to become the best driver in the Arctic circle. The limited rides on offer at first are by no means the slowest or clunkiest of bangers and it's likely you will find an early favourite that will keep winning races right up to the end for many circuits require cunning and judicious use of the boost button as much as or more than acceleration or speed. Once each track becomes more familiar it is easy and satisfying to go toe-to-toe with, and beat a vehicle that, in any other racing situation would outclass your choice in a heartbeat.

Some tracks feature very little snowy terrain or none at all, making your vehicle choice all the more important. Best to leave the skidoo in the garage here and plump for something with really big tyres.

The boost mentioned is a wily thing. Holding down R will start to fill up the meter and rather than rocketing your ride forward in a burst of instant and constant acceleration, it gradually speeds you up until the surrounding snowy rocks are a blur. Hold on for too long, however, and expect to be thrown high above the ice in an explosion that is a lot of fun to watch when it is happening to one of your rivals, not so fun when, from your lofty height, you can see your second place position reduced to tenth in real time.

Winning races earns inevitable points and rewards such as new paint jobs. Stars are awarded when a particular objective is reached during a race: staying in first place for 10 seconds, crossing the finish line during a self inflicted boost ovewrload explosion etc. Collect enough stars to open new play modes like a gate slalom among others.

The HUD. Time in top right, position and lap bottom right, boost gauge at bottom right. Notice the complete absence of a speedometer. Trust me, it's fast.

A long career mode with 12 tracks which can be played in reverse and in many different ways depending on your choice of vehicle, time trial modes that can pit you against the ghost of the developers best times, online multiplayer and lots of customisation options make Motorstorm: Arctic Edge for the PSP the most varied and interesting racing game I have played in 20 years. I recommend it as the reason to buy a PSP. I have a new favourite developer in Bigbig Studios and look forward to seeing how they will advance the racing and extreme sports video game scene in the future.