Modnation Racers

Is this game worth a test drive, or a one way ticket to the scrap heap?

Modnation Racers is the equivalent to Racing games that LittleBigPlanet is to Sidescrolling games. It looks cute, funny and colourful and has all the appeal to draw in younger players, however much like LBP, Modnation isnt just for the younger generation. Being a late 20's player, and having played a wide variety of games over the years, Modnation is bringing something fresh into the racing genre. It looks different, it plays different and it has the ultimate in customization tools for the player. The main "draw" of Modnation is the create a track feature, which is rather robust and indepth and lets you do anything you want within reason. Much like the original tracks made by the developers, you can create shortcuts in the tracks to make it interesting, and place a wide range of items from boost pads, weapons to collect during the race to general "cosmetic" items to make your custom track look good.

The racing aspect of the game isnt quite as advanced as a Need for Speed game or Gran Turismo, but for the most part it is rather enjoyable. It plays like a basic racer; you get boost and drifting abilities, but they are basic, but then again this is a kart racing game and not a "sports car" racing game so thats to be expected. There is one rather annoying factor to the game, and thats the AI rubber banding. Theres only one way to really describe it, and that would be "brutal". You can take the lead in the first lap of a race, and be in control of the race until near the end. Then, more often than not, the AI will let the other races have a fully powered up weapon (such as the Hyrda missle powerup) which will hit you, "kill" you and reset you, in which time you will end up between 7th and last (12 racers per race) place. Whilst this would be acceptable once in a while and would add to the challenge on some races, this happens all to often and can get VERY frustrating. At one point, i had to play through one track at least 20 times whilst experiencing this until i managed to get into 3rd position and progress to the next race. On the same note, there are also a lot of challenges to do across the career mode. These will include taking down a number of oponents in 1 race, to getting a certain number of drift or speed points, to one of the most difficult ones to do, complete the race in 1st place without hitting any of the barriers through the entire race. Given the nature of the course itself, this is nearly impossible to achieve.

With the main focus being on the create mode of the game, much like LittleBigPlanet, the story in Modnation Racers is pretty basic. There are cut scenes before and after the first handful of races in career mode, and as you go further into the career you get them only before the races for the majority of the time. The storyline itself revolves around a "wannabe" racer getting a chance at the "big leagues" and thats pretty much all there is to it. The majority of the story is "narrated" by 2 commentators who bicker all of the time, and whilst this is fine in the beginning, as you continue through the career, it tends to just get boring and repetitive.

The visuals, even though the game revolves around a simplistic style of art, do look really good. Much like the create a track mode, you can create your own racer and kart, and the customization options are rather impressive. You do have to unlock a lot of content through the career mode by winning races and completing challenges, but you do start with a generous amount of items to use from the start. The races do look impressive aswell, and when taking into account the large amount of objects used for each racer and kart, as well as the map itself and the objects used to make it look good, the frame rate does seem to hold up really well, and show off the power of the PS3s cell processor and graphics capability.

Multiplayer is just like playing the standard career mode, but without the harsh AI rubber banding and online with upto 11 other players. Each time you complete a race you gain XP which contribute to levels, much like most of the Multiplayer games being released over the past couple of years. The one large issue with the online mode of Modnation is that after each race you partake in online, you get loaded back to the Modspot (the "main menu" of the game, which you can drive around to gain access to all areas of the game) and forces you to go back to the online component to join in another race. With the long loading times of the game, this gets really frustrating to say the least. Each race (based on an average of 3 laps per session) takes between 2 and 4 minutes depending on the length of the track, and takes a further 40 to 60 seconds to load back to the Modspot, and then between 40-80 seconds to load into a new race depending on the amount of people and how many items, stickers, etc they have on their character and karts. This adds to the frustration of the game over all. In a way, the multiplayer aspect of this game is expanded more than just playing in races. You can also upload all of your creations if you should chose too, and have other players download them and rate them, which gives you "Creation XP", and in turn you can download and rate other players creations aswell.

In summary, Modnation strives to be a cross over between a simple version of Need for Speed or Gran Turismo and LittleBigPlanet with its choice to create your own players, karts and maps. If you are looking for a fun racer which doesnt take itself to seriously, has a basic storyline and you can over look the long loading times, getting crushed by the AI rubber banding and annoying commentators during the beginning and end of each race, then you should definately take a look at Modnation Racers.

Written by :

Hellblazer