Modnation Racers is the second release in the Play-Create-Share line and just as the first (Little Big Planet) it really is spot on as far as fun, customization and playability are concerned!
PLAY: being a game the core of it is playing and playing is really fun and engaging!
The kart commands are easy to master and driving experience is great.
Mastering the kart doesn't only mean learning to drive but also learning to effectively use the drift, the draft, the boosts and the various weapons against your opponents and obviously exploiting the track shortcuts, boosts, ramps etc.
You can play online against other 11 players either in ranked match (to earn XP) or in private ones.
And you can play the career mode where you unlock bonuses, earn tokens to spend on kart parts and unlock achievements (that also unlock mod parts, tracks items, NPS characters and so on).
The career mode (which also serves as tutorial and presentation at the beginning) is really well built: you basically impersonate a racer that is making progress to the professional circuit.
Everything is well thought-out: your manager, your mechanic, the funny commentators, all the details are there to suck you into the experience.
The races are funny and challenging with a good difficulty curve as you progress to higher level and more difficult races and with ever more challenging achievements.
The challenges get indeed harder and harder and, unfortunately, sometimes the AI really seem to "play against you" since once you complete one of the challenges on a track where you could "easily" win everyone plays against you to not make you arrive 1st, so some of the later tracks achievements are really hard to beat and require a lot of trials (so always remember to keep your boost for the shield)!
I would suggest to go on with the main career first to gather experience and then feel less frustrated at doing the challenges.
There are many little and bigger details that make the experience more intriguing and interesting and that really speak for the creativity and care put into the game:
for example the characters on the circuit show the very character faces so that's is really easy to understand what's your position on the track.
The shortcut scenes in the career mode add depth and involvement to the game.
The racers you race against are also nicely characterized as NPCs and everyone has his/her "cut-scene" when you race on their circuit.
The tracks are varied and really well built, the environments rich and detailed.
They are long enough to be varied but also short enough that you can easily memorize them and the best route to follow.
All tracks were built on different height levels and pose different challenges and options as far as terrain type, boosts and jump or shortcuts are concerned.
Everyone has its own flavour and its dangers and you can really build your own strategy.
They grow more complex as you progress so that you get easily used to the different threats and treats each track includes.
CREATE: this part is just as great as the play part!
There are basically 3 things you can do:
- customize your mod (character)
- customize your kart
- create tracks.
The editors are incredibly user-friendly and creating custom content really is a breeze.
As you start there are many things that are locked (and that you earn through career mode either fulfilling achievements or collecting points that you can spend at the store) but you can already create a very personal racer.
There are tens of body parts, clothes and stickers you can mix and match, overlap and edit in many different ways.
And the very same is true for the karts!
The only limit is your imagination.
While creating a track from scratch may sound daunting at first it really isn't so and you'll be surprised yourself how quickly and easy you can create your own track.
It really is as easy as it was shown at E3 2009 for those that watched it!
Of course if you really want to create something unique and special you'll have to spend a bit more time on it but the editor is great and you'll just have fun doing it!
One can easily spend hours customizing mods (characters), karts and tracks without even realizing it, it's so much fun!
SHARE: couldn't be easier, you just save your stuff, go at the share boot and upload it using the most appropriate tags!
And downloading is just as easy, go at the booth, browse and download what you like!
The game is really stylish, the characters remind those vinyl toys that designers love to customize so much.
The graphic is excellent, very detailed and polished, there is no place where you feel something is missing, in fact the tracks are cluttered with items with nice special effect such as dust, boost and the various weapons effects.
As for the loading times to be honest they aren't so painful or unbearable. Sometimes you have to wait a few seconds indeed but to be honest you can just spend that time imagining your next mod or kart!!!
I have to confess that after trying the beta a few months back I was a bit perplexed as far as the frame-rate was concerned as it felt a bit too low but the final game doesn't have any frame-rate problem.
It probably isn't a 60 frames per second but the frame-rate is high enough and steady for a great racing experience!
This isn't a game for kart/racing games fans only, it's a game for everyone that likes to have fun!!!
Conclusions:
First and foremost because it really is FUN!
Racing is a breeze, the tracks are very well built and intriguing, the game is really involving.
The create part of the game is fantastic, user-friendly and very easy to master.
All in all is a really involving and funny game you'll be spending hours playing!
UPs:
funny, intriguing driving experience
infinite room for customization
lots of bonuses/achievemnts to unlock
DOWNs:
you can't invite friends to online ranked matches.
harder challenges can be very hard as the AI seems to really play against you
the online still needs to be finalized: both for matchmaking and disconnections
GRAPHIC: 9
ART: Very stylish, the vinyl-toys template for the mods works a treat for customization.
Great variety but the style is always consistent.
ENGINE: works very well, good anti-aliasing and good frame-rate for a smooth race experience. The graphic always looks polished and rich! Nice weapons effects.
SOUND: 8.5
MUSIC: good music that matches the game style
VOICES: the commentators are really fun and nice to listen too, good variety of voices for the mods as well!
GAMEPLAY: 9.5
The racing experience is smooth and well done, the controls are very responsive with nice additions to the basic experience: drifting, side-swiping etc.
The weapons "charging" feature is very nice.
Achievements and unlocks add re-playability and challenge to the game. Well structured tracks.
FUN FACTOR: 9.5
The career mode is an excellent experience, the difficulty level is well balanced.
Challenges are intriguing (though hard) and give nice rewards, The create is incredibly fun and user-friendly.
The online modes are good but need a patch, however the racing experience is smooth and well done!
ONLINE: 8.0
The online is promising but still quite bugged.
Matchmaking is faulty and disconnections all too frequent: a patch should solve the problems and make the experience very funny!
However you cannot create teams and invite friends to ranked races, only private ones.
OVERALL: 9.0
And have fun!!!
Ivy
PLAY: being a game the core of it is playing and playing is really fun and engaging!
The kart commands are easy to master and driving experience is great.
Mastering the kart doesn't only mean learning to drive but also learning to effectively use the drift, the draft, the boosts and the various weapons against your opponents and obviously exploiting the track shortcuts, boosts, ramps etc.
You can play online against other 11 players either in ranked match (to earn XP) or in private ones.
And you can play the career mode where you unlock bonuses, earn tokens to spend on kart parts and unlock achievements (that also unlock mod parts, tracks items, NPS characters and so on).
The career mode (which also serves as tutorial and presentation at the beginning) is really well built: you basically impersonate a racer that is making progress to the professional circuit.
Everything is well thought-out: your manager, your mechanic, the funny commentators, all the details are there to suck you into the experience.
The races are funny and challenging with a good difficulty curve as you progress to higher level and more difficult races and with ever more challenging achievements.
The challenges get indeed harder and harder and, unfortunately, sometimes the AI really seem to "play against you" since once you complete one of the challenges on a track where you could "easily" win everyone plays against you to not make you arrive 1st, so some of the later tracks achievements are really hard to beat and require a lot of trials (so always remember to keep your boost for the shield)!
I would suggest to go on with the main career first to gather experience and then feel less frustrated at doing the challenges.
There are many little and bigger details that make the experience more intriguing and interesting and that really speak for the creativity and care put into the game:
for example the characters on the circuit show the very character faces so that's is really easy to understand what's your position on the track.
The shortcut scenes in the career mode add depth and involvement to the game.
The racers you race against are also nicely characterized as NPCs and everyone has his/her "cut-scene" when you race on their circuit.
The tracks are varied and really well built, the environments rich and detailed.
They are long enough to be varied but also short enough that you can easily memorize them and the best route to follow.
All tracks were built on different height levels and pose different challenges and options as far as terrain type, boosts and jump or shortcuts are concerned.
Everyone has its own flavour and its dangers and you can really build your own strategy.
They grow more complex as you progress so that you get easily used to the different threats and treats each track includes.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ * * * ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
CREATE: this part is just as great as the play part!
There are basically 3 things you can do:
- customize your mod (character)
- customize your kart
- create tracks.
The editors are incredibly user-friendly and creating custom content really is a breeze.
As you start there are many things that are locked (and that you earn through career mode either fulfilling achievements or collecting points that you can spend at the store) but you can already create a very personal racer.
There are tens of body parts, clothes and stickers you can mix and match, overlap and edit in many different ways.
And the very same is true for the karts!
The only limit is your imagination.
While creating a track from scratch may sound daunting at first it really isn't so and you'll be surprised yourself how quickly and easy you can create your own track.
It really is as easy as it was shown at E3 2009 for those that watched it!
Of course if you really want to create something unique and special you'll have to spend a bit more time on it but the editor is great and you'll just have fun doing it!
One can easily spend hours customizing mods (characters), karts and tracks without even realizing it, it's so much fun!
Fear not, if there are any pieces you're missing for your mod you can mix an already available mod as you like. Above my Black Cherry is based on Lish since I still have to unlock that hair style!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ * * * ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
SHARE: couldn't be easier, you just save your stuff, go at the share boot and upload it using the most appropriate tags!
And downloading is just as easy, go at the booth, browse and download what you like!
Bubble Gum, a cute alien girl (on the left) is the first mod I've shared (Black Cherry coming soon together with her car). On the right Cap. James T. Kirk still needs the final touches :).
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ * * * ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
And so....The game is really stylish, the characters remind those vinyl toys that designers love to customize so much.
The graphic is excellent, very detailed and polished, there is no place where you feel something is missing, in fact the tracks are cluttered with items with nice special effect such as dust, boost and the various weapons effects.
As for the loading times to be honest they aren't so painful or unbearable. Sometimes you have to wait a few seconds indeed but to be honest you can just spend that time imagining your next mod or kart!!!
I have to confess that after trying the beta a few months back I was a bit perplexed as far as the frame-rate was concerned as it felt a bit too low but the final game doesn't have any frame-rate problem.
It probably isn't a 60 frames per second but the frame-rate is high enough and steady for a great racing experience!
This isn't a game for kart/racing games fans only, it's a game for everyone that likes to have fun!!!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ * * * ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Conclusions:
First and foremost because it really is FUN!
Racing is a breeze, the tracks are very well built and intriguing, the game is really involving.
The create part of the game is fantastic, user-friendly and very easy to master.
All in all is a really involving and funny game you'll be spending hours playing!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ * * * ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
UPs:
funny, intriguing driving experience
infinite room for customization
lots of bonuses/achievemnts to unlock
DOWNs:
you can't invite friends to online ranked matches.
harder challenges can be very hard as the AI seems to really play against you
the online still needs to be finalized: both for matchmaking and disconnections
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ * * * ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
My SCORES:
GRAPHIC: 9
ART: Very stylish, the vinyl-toys template for the mods works a treat for customization.
Great variety but the style is always consistent.
ENGINE: works very well, good anti-aliasing and good frame-rate for a smooth race experience. The graphic always looks polished and rich! Nice weapons effects.
SOUND: 8.5
MUSIC: good music that matches the game style
VOICES: the commentators are really fun and nice to listen too, good variety of voices for the mods as well!
GAMEPLAY: 9.5
The racing experience is smooth and well done, the controls are very responsive with nice additions to the basic experience: drifting, side-swiping etc.
The weapons "charging" feature is very nice.
Achievements and unlocks add re-playability and challenge to the game. Well structured tracks.
FUN FACTOR: 9.5
The career mode is an excellent experience, the difficulty level is well balanced.
Challenges are intriguing (though hard) and give nice rewards, The create is incredibly fun and user-friendly.
The online modes are good but need a patch, however the racing experience is smooth and well done!
ONLINE: 8.0
The online is promising but still quite bugged.
Matchmaking is faulty and disconnections all too frequent: a patch should solve the problems and make the experience very funny!
However you cannot create teams and invite friends to ranked races, only private ones.
OVERALL: 9.0
And have fun!!!
Ivy
