Review
ModNation Racers
By Jorge Figueiredo - June 28th, 2010
My romance with kart racing games is a fickle thing. While I prefer other racing genres (arcade – NFS, simulation – GT), I occasionally engage in trysts with kart racing. Usually there is a period of great excitement at first, accompanied by a healthy amount of playing time; eventually, though, this wears off, and the tracks get boring because they’re all the same, or perhaps just not really challenging enough. But a recent title has stolen a portion of my racing heart, and that title is ModNation Racers for the PS3.
MNR is an offering from United Front Games and San Diego Studios that puts you in the driver’s seat of practically whatever you want to drive (appearance-wise) as whomever you want to drive; that is, it delivers on the first three letters of the game title. This game is all about customization, which is really a great way to enhance the user experience.
Upon entering the game, you sit at the entryway to the ModSpot, which is the lobby of the game; this serves as a menu, and is set up like a small open course. You start in your active kart as your active character and drive to all of your options; this is a lot of fun to navigate. When I first tried this system out, I wondered if it would lose any of the novelty over time, but UFG has done a great job keeping it small enough to remain fun and large enough to remain engaging. There are many options available, and they are just a quick trip away from the entryway; what is really awesome are the displays for Top Mods, Top Karts and Top Tracks which are on display directly across from where you enter the ModSpot.
If you swing to your left, you will enter the racing area. From here you can do a quick race, work on your racing career in single player career mode, or go online. The career mode is hilarious and awesome, as professional writers were hired to do the story, which goes a long way in terms of quality and entertainment; your career spans several circuits, and each circuit has helpful information on your goals, as well as ‘grudge matches’ (as you progress, winning races will trigger a tough grudge match with the dominant racer on that track). Races in career mode are challenging enough to keep your attention; extra goals on each track add a bit of difficulty, but reward you if you reach them; you may find yourself repeating races to unlock everything.
Racing itself is great; UFG designed this baby from the ground up and it shows. There are your standard features of racing (namely going fast and turning, of course) – this hasn’t really changed in the history of kart racing games. However, the taunts and gestures you can perform are awesome (you use the D-pad); these controls transition easily into stunts when you actually catch air. Drifting is also an important part of the game. Not only does it net you some sweet points, but it also fills your boost meter, which provides consumable energy for your turbo and your shields. Shields? Yes shields. If you manage to survive the traps that are abundant on some tracks, you will also need to be aware of the very immersive weapon system in the game; it doesn’t just allow you to pick up a weapon; it also allows you to upgrade that weapon by driving over another weapon pickup. Weapons reach level 3 and increase in power as they climb there from level 1. Everything from super turbo to full missile banks: racing just got a bit more complicated, especially when you switch to playing against human opponents.
Multiplayer racing is also well done. Whether you play local 4-player split-screen, or online, you will be impressed with how much fun the it can be, particularly the online component. Usually gaming online involves running into a fair number of jerks; the ModNation community (thusfar) seems to be lacking that sub-class of player. In fact, everyone that I have run into is really helpful and nice; maybe I’m just lucky? Joining online matches is breeze, as is initiating them, especially with such a wide array of fun tracks to download. The amount of creativity that some of these people have is astounding; I have raced on some really awesome tracks.
As I mentioned before, MNR makes good on the “mod” and allows you more than a fair amount of control over the appearance of practically everything. If you veer to the right as you enter the ModSpot, you will see the area dedicated to content creation and modification. In the studio, you will be able to customize your character right down to the size, shape, and colour of his or her eyeballs. Don’t like your current kart? Change it! MNR has tools that are easy to use and, unless you are ridiculously meticulous, you will find yourself done in less time than you thought. The track creation tool, as I mentioned in this article is a breeze, allowing you to create a feature-rich track in no time by employing a cool method: drive your track to create it. The slick interface displays a cement mixer/steamroller combo that lays your track as you drive. It’s a fantastic way to design a track as you are at track level; you really get a feel for what you are doing; it’s completely intuitive. Traditional viewpoints are not done away with, either; you can definitely take a step back to review if you are unsure of a part of your design. When you are complete, you can place objects or allow the game to automatically populate the area around your track (including some track modification). It is a sweet system.
The visuals in MNR are great, considering the cartoonish nature of the game. Colours are crisp and bright, and the game is realistic-looking for what it’s trying to do. Soundtrack and audio effects are also spot-on. I found the initial voice volume to be somewhat loud (mainly the track announcers), but these things can be adjusted later.
MNR really impressed me; for a kart game that’s not easy to do. The number one selling point of this game is customizability. Many parallels have been drawn between this and LitteBigPlanet, and it’s not hard to see why. With such a robust creation/modification system, and a design that takes advantage of the free layer of the PSN, sharing contest couldn’t be easier. Fun racing; easy controls; simple creation/modding tools; fun online experience; tons of DLC: what’s not to love?
ModNation Racers is available for the PS3 (and the PSP) at a gaming garage near you!
