ModNation Racers Review

9.1

Format PlayStation 3

Developer Sony Computer Entertainment

Publisher Sony Computer Entertainment

Genre Racing / Driving

21 Comments

Since the dawn of the virtual track, karting games have come and gone offering the perfect pastime for frantic racing with friends and, once the dust has settled, Mario has always been the last man standing.

The latest contender came in Sonic and Sega All-Star Racing, and while that was fun enough, it didn't really do anything new and didn't capture the magic of Mario Kart when it came to the basics.

ModNation Racers is different. It brings a whole host of new ideas to the track and, dare we say it, maybe even beats Mario at some of the fundamentals. Nintendo: check your rear view mirror.

TOY TOWN
The first thing you notice about ModNation Racers is its personality. Simple but substantial designs, solid, bright colours and bobble headed characters give the racer a toybox feel, almost as if it were an off-world colony of Little Big Planet.

But it's much deeper than that. The game begins with your introduction to the ModNation Racing Championship (MRC), which is covered from a television studio by commentators Biff Tradwell and Gary Reasons. These guys follow you throughout your racing career and with Biff's brash intolerance of namby pamby Gary Reasons, bring an almost Anchorman style dialogue and comedy to the mode.

Alright, so the jokes are often a bit weak but they have bright moments and it's a relationship that you'll start to look forward to watching inbetween races.

There're more characters with really likable personalities as well, all of whom bring flashes of comedy gold every now and then (When was the last time Mario told you a joke?) First is your second hand kart dealing uncle, who's business proclaims to put "the ordinary in extraordinary". Then there's the grumpy but sometimes encouraging crew chief, or Italian track rival Espresso, who's car is made from the finest materials including a snake skin airbag.

These characters will never be able to take on the nostalgia force that is Super Mario and friends on personality alone, but there's a real world here in ModNation Racers and we can't help but feel charmed.

It's more than a few race tracks behind a menu screen. In fact, there isn't a menu screen at all; players zip around a square called the Mod Spot and drive up to various buildings and openings to activate events or access different areas. This is where you realise that ModNation Racers is bursting with features, some of which just haven't been seen in the world of virtual karting before.

Quick races allow access to tracks where difficulty, top speed, number of racers and whether or not weapons can be used are all tweakable. Online and split screen modes provide the standard multiplayer options and the career gate takes you back to your progress in the MRC ,where you'll gradually race through different tours, taking on elite drivers in some races such as Italian Stallion Espresso.

CREATE YOUR OWN
The unique selling point of ModNation Racers, however, is the creation station and its wider online community. At the Creation Station you can craft custom carts and racers using unlockable, eyes, ears, wheels, engines, stickers and spray jobs. Your kart won't perform any differently with a V8 engine in the back than it will if it's made entirely out of cardboard, but from an aesthetic perspective, the create features in the game are deep.

They become deeper still when you get online and share your creations, modify the work of others and comment and rate their karts or get ups.

The real asset, however, is the track creator. This allows you to create impressive and crazy courses with ease by steam rolling road all over the place and tweaking everything from weapons pods, trees, water levels, even the position of the sun and the amount of cloud in the sky.

If you don't want to spend hours, you can just lay down your track and have it populated automatically for a great looking course in minutes. It's impressive stuff.

The potential for a thriving ModNation Racers online, caring, sharing community (again, Little Big Planet gets a mention) points towards something that could become massive once some of the more creative gamers get stuck in. The rest of us can just drop in every now and then to play a completely unique track every time.

RACE DAY
But enough foreplay, there's only one place a racing game really matters and that's on the track. Here, ModNation Racers stays much closer to Mario Kart and the two are hard to separate. The philosophy behind the racing is of course the same; it's about speed, well timed weaponry, shortcuts and most importantly drifting.

ModNation has tweaked the drift mechanism and its reward pattern ever so slightly. Instead of cornering being solely about timing your drift into the corner, you retain some control even during the drift. By forcing the front and back end of your kart in and out you can pull tighter into or drift wider out of a corner making it a game of balance and tiny adjustments for the perfect turn.

As with Mario, racers are rewarded with boost the longer they drift, only this time the boost is stored to be used at the players' discretion by holding the L1 button, more like Burnout.

The weapon system also mirrors the karting master. Collecting 'weapons pods' arranged across the track at certain points arms your kart with some sort of zany projectile.

In a way the weapons in ModNation are severely limited compared to Mario Kart, with only four modifications being available; a pink electric bolt, a blue pulse that knocks opponents for six, a semi-seeking rocket attack and a green one-off super boost. Slim pickings you might say.

What this racer does here, however, is interesting. Rather than picking up one weapon to be used before the next can be acquired, players are actually rewarded for tactically holding on to their power-up rather than just splurging it at the first opportunity.

If you collect another pod with a power-up already primed, your weapon will be upgraded rather than squandered. So that mini-blue pulse eventually becomes a massive sonic boom that rides off down the track when triggered, and what starts of as a hard to aim pink streak of lightening evolves into a far more powerful weapon with tracking capabilities.

Yes, the range of weapons still feels limited but this kind of system is a clever one and really creates an intense tactical edge. It makes you wonder why multiple box pick-ups have never been rewarded in the past (beyond Diddy Kong Racing on N64, anyway).

The game's karts also come with a handy shield that can be deployed at will a limited number of times with the circle button. Triggered at the right time it can be a real-life saver, adding an extra twist to that end of race sequence when your opponent is sure they're about to blow you off the finish line and take the win.

ModNation Racers is the first kart 'em up to challenge Mario in this way. It equals the champ in most areas on the track and certainly surpasses him off it. Where it falls down is perhaps in the variety of weapons available although the ideas behind the reason for this should be applauded.

There are a few quibbles such as lengthy loading screens that we thought this gen had grown out of (and a fair few of them as well) and the fact that when some weapons, such as the rocket launcher, blow your kart to kingdom come the game cuts away and respawns your character.

It's a minor criticism but that kind of transition should be used in emergencies only, when someone falls off the track completely for example. As it stands it just causes annoying breaks in the frantic pace of the race and is liable to cause harmful rage as copious amounts of adrenaline are suddenly left without an outlet, albeit only for a second.

PHOTO FINISH
Little problems like this, however, barely even make a scratch on this beautifully fun, frantic, deep and deliberately tongue in cheek racer, which manages to deliver all the fundamentals of a world class karting game as well as throwing in a shed load of brilliant features and the odd innovation here and there.

Is it better than Mario Kart? Even if it were it would never be able to tear the plumber's long-time loyal fan base away. That's a franchise that gamers have simply invested so much in over the years and they'll be damned if they're going to turn their backs on it while it's still producing the goods.

Perhaps that's just us avoiding the billion-dollar question for fear of hearing a big blue shell coming our way. What we can say though, is that ModNation has forced us to start a rota for our lunch time karting sessions from now on. Watch your back Mario.