"Bollocks" does 3D hog CPU - Evolution

3D games don't crumble under immense CPU hunger: that's "bollocks", MotorStorm maker Matt Southern has said.

"You do need a little bit more processing power, but I don't think it's quite the hit that some people are claiming," Southern said at his Eurogamer Expo 2010 presentation. "That might just be the fact that we've been doing it for years now and have kind of got really optimal code.

"I've seen people say that it takes a huge chunk of the processing power. Bollocks. It takes a little.

"The main thing is drawing the game twice, and if your code's efficient and you've done a decent job of optimisation then it's not going to have a massive effect on visual quality."

Southern is in charge of what will be a flagship 3D title for Sony. He did concede that adding the stereoscopic view does affect resolution as "you're basically drawing the game twice".

"It's a bit like split-screen," he explained, "which is why there's no 3D split-screen, because then it would look like a Spectrum game."

He added: "We're still aiming for 1080p in 3D and split-screen. I say aiming - I'm certainly not going to promise it. But right now it runs in 1080p."

MotorStorm Apocalypse was (and is) playable at the Eurogamer Expo 2010 this weekend. But don't panic if you missed out, because a public beta is planned.

"We'll do a closed one initially that's within a week-and-a-half with Sony staff," said Southern. "And providing that isn't a disaster we'll roll it out one to the public and initially to members of things like MotorStorm Monday.

"People who use the forums a lot will get personal invites and a unique livery for taking part."

MotorStorm Apocalypse takes the off-road series into a destroyed urban cityscape. And with the change in setting has come a change in mentality, and a focus towards this generation's flock of successful action games rather than the apparently dwindling racers.

"What all of those [racers] have in common is an acknowledgement that racing hasn't quite been doing it in this generation," declared Southern

"What we decided to do from a very early stage is taking inspiration from games that are doing it on this generation.

"So that means we've looked very rarely at other racing games and looked a hell of a lot at action games and shooters in particular."

Southern's presentation also revealed an early prototype called Urban Smash, which eventually became the foundation for MotorStorm Apocalypse. A video from 2007 showed buses taking chunks off giant untextured buildings. "Doesn't that look bloody awful," chirped Southern when the video ended.

The game was designed to be "a bit like X-Factor with less bland singing".

MotorStorm Apocalypse will be released exclusively for PS3 in spring 2011. "Not got a finite date yet but it's looking like it's going to be early March," Southern said.

To hear more from the frank mouth of Matt Southern, check out our MotorStorm Apocalypse interview published earlier today.