MotorStorm: Pacific Rift is one of those titles that, despite not having been a huge hit, easily remained in the minds of its fans many long years after they had stopped playing it.
The game launched in late 2008 for the PlayStation 3, delivering heart-pounding off-road action through sixteen original tracks featuring a healthy mix of locales such as jungles, beaches, caves, and mountainsides. MotorStorm: Pacific Rift also added a new gameplay feature related to the traversal of rivers and waterfalls: water would cool engines, but going in too deep inevitably slowed down racers. There were also plenty of vehicle types to choose from, ranging from the likes of Buggies and ATVs to Monster Trucks and Bikes, and each of them was fun to drive around. There really hasn’t been as good of an arcade off-road racing game since, at least in this author’s opinion.
Having been developed by the defunct Evolution Studios as a PS3 exclusive, it’s a bit hard nowadays to experience the game, especially after the online servers were closed around ten years ago by Sony. However, the development team of RPCS3 has greatly improved the PC emulator’s compatibility with the game recently. To demonstrate it, they published a stunning MotorStorm: Pacific Rift 4K@60FPS gameplay video showing how gorgeous and smooth this game can look once it is unburdened by hardware constraints.
The RPCS3 team even developed a few additional patches to support variable FPS and disable dynamic resolution scaling and motion blur effects. If you wish to emulate MotorStorm: Pacific Rift yourself, there’s a dedicated page on the wiki that includes all of the recommended settings and tweaks. Have fun!
