First let me state I am a huge Motorstorm fan and I've completed that one, I hadn't been really excited about a racer for a very long time before Motorstorm came along. Sure I can appreciate Gran Turismo 5 or WipeOut HD's visuals, but I really like crashing madness racers. And Motorstorm was that despite some imperfections like lack of split screen and lenghty loading times for each track (replay is instant).
I found PGR4 and DiRT boring for my taste, I don't like to pull off stunts like in Pure (it looks good though).
First when I tried the Motorstorm: Pacific Rift demo I was underwhelmed by it and wasn't even sure I would buy this game. Luckily user impressions and screen shots made me tingle enough to finally buy this game recently and it's most excellent!
I don't know what the devs were thinking when releasing a work-in-progress demo of what seems to be by far the least impressive track in the game (that one is IMO mediocre). Probably it had to do with download size, but nearly they caused me to miss out on this very good game! It takes care of nearly all imperfections of the first game and I love the variety!
It seems the game makes less use of rubber band AI, this is both good and bad (so let's just say different), with rubber band AI after a few mistakes you still have a good chance of winning the race in the final lap if you race very well, that doesn't seem to be the case as much for PR, but neither if you make a few mistakes in the last lap you end up last if you raced flawlessly before that.
I'm still far away from completing Motorstorm 2, so I can't fully review this game. But it seems at least the beginning is a bit easier, you don't have to memorize the locations of little peddles lying around as much, which could make you crash.
If you liked the original Motorstorm but were put off by the demo like I was and thus don't have the courage to buy it I would recommend to at least rent it. I think chances are good you will love Pacific Rift, I think it's an even better game than Motorstorm is with some major improvements on various fronts! 8-)
