Local blogger a motocross failure

While Thomas was crowding the aisle with his five-button jam session (from which the whammy bar was curiously missing), I was rocking and rolling in my own way on the PS3's MotorStorm demo. My previous impressions notwithstanding, this game was fun. I got to be a voluptuous female biker in a tight-fitting suit who likes to race her tiny, green bike against huge, mutant dune buggies.

The Sixaxis controller was mounted to the display stand, limiting its mobility, but I was able to determine what shifting one's weight midair via the thumbstick could accomplish: booty waggling in HD. I can only surmise that were I able to tilt the controller, exotic dance would commence.

The environment problems were still there, but the indefinable "fun factor" made up for occasional uglies in the Grand Canyon-like track. The game almost encouraged reckless acrobatics off the track's abundant cliff faces by switching to slow motion and not penalizing the player too much for experimenting with gravity. The driver's ragdoll physics were almost too much.

One minor feature I kept over-hyping to passersby was the mapping of accelerator and brake to the now-analog R2 and L2 triggers, respectively. Slowing down for turns felt more natural than slamming on full brakes or coasting. None of the strangers in Wal-Mart seemed to care about what I viewed as a critical success, but then again, I was practically reviewing the game aloud as I raced.

I finished in the top 12, but only because there wasn't a thirteenth racer there to pass me.

I look forward to getting my hands on the game again, but I hope Random Stoned Guy will cheer my busty biker babe to victory—or at least to her spectacular death—next time.