ModNation Racers

10 Review to this product

• 

  Keith Hernandez
  May 25th, 2010 on 6:41 am

  Rating

  Modnation Racers is the newest Kart Racing game in the Genre, and in my opinion, it is way ahead of the competition. Of course, this game is being compared to Mario Kart. Having never played the newest Mario Kart for Wii, I can’t really compare the two much. I have, although played the older Mario Kart, and if the Wii version is nearly the same, I believe Modnation Racers tops it.

  The Good: Modnation Racers is the kind of game that anybody can enjoy. The Track, Mod, and Kart creator are super simple and it has loads of different hairstyles, clothes, shoes, stickers, accessories, etc. I can easily see this having a huge library of user created content just like LittleBigPlanet. When you start the game, you automatically are entered into the MRC Qualifiers race and after a brief introduction you are taken to the ModSpot. Here is where everything happens on Modnation Racers, such as entering Online races, Split Screen, and Career races. There is also an area where Top Mods and Karts are displayed. I’ve seen mods of Mario, Spider-Man, Iron-Man, Joker, and many more. With this many mods in just a few days, I’m positive there will be a TON of amazing mods in weeks. Other players connected to the PSN are also in the same ModSpot as you and can just ride around drifting or just simply enter one of the areas in the ModSpot.
  
  The controls are also great. Drifting is easy and insanely addicting. When racing an Action Race, collect pods and you receive weapons. If you’re tired of getting blown up, select Pure Race. Before you enter a race in the Career Mode, there is a little cinematic, sometimes with these two Hosts, or with you and your mechanic. These cinematics are filled with humor to give you a laugh or two before a race.

  The Bad: The load and install times on this game can get ridiculously long. Though it’s not something to keep you away from the game, sometimes you’ll just want to jump into a race but have to wait almost an entire minute to begin. Mic support is a good feature, but I wish there wasn’t so many people cursing and talking crap through their headsets, but there isn’t really a way to fix that. Other than those two things listed, there really isn’t much I’ve run into that is degrading to the game. *One more bad I ran into recently is that it takes forever to start up an XP race, which is what gives you the chance to progress on the Multiplayer side of Modnation. I’m not sure if people just don’t know their way around the menus, or they all want to just race casually. Although it’s a little disappointing as of now, I’m positive that in a short amount of time there will be much more people on the XP races*

  Overall, in just a few days that people have had the game, there has been some really neat creations coming from the community. Hopefully in the future, there will be an update to help the load times.
  
  All PS3 owners, GET THIS… or at least try it.
• 

  William Brimer
  May 26th, 2010 on 4:25 am

  Rating

  I have to say what a fun game. The raceing is more fun then mario kart, it is more involed. Overall this is one of the best games for PS3.
  
  It was pretty easy to pick up this game and play like a champ. It is just like any other raceing games, the steering easy. The weapons are great, you can level them up from a level one to level three, ya there is only four different types of weapons, but being able to upgreade them it makes it feel like there are more.
  
  In this game you get so much, it seems like your $60 you spent for the game is worth it, unlike heavy rain(12 hours of game play for $60), you get unlimited game play. In the career mode, there is so much more things to do then just race, you got other task to do to unlock more stuff. Then you got online raceing, so much fun, online is more fun then mario kart wii!! Then you can create your mod, I spent like 30 min. on my mod, and I have only unlocked a little bit, then you have your Kart, I spent an hour on that.
  
  The best part of the game to me, is the Track Creator!! It is the best thing to ever to be put in a game, unlike like LBP, it is simple and easy to use. You can take 5 min. to 5 hours building the track of your dreams, and it is so fun.
  
  This game is a must buy for anyone, that likes to have fun.
  
• 

  Nemesis296
  May 26th, 2010 on 6:44 am

  Rating

  ModNation Racers seeks to do what no other kart racer has done; allow unlimited customization and involve a community to be creative and share their ideas. While it’s similar to LittleBigPlanet because of the “Race, Create, Share” tag that Sony and United Front Games have put onto this title, I feel that it expands on this idea even further than Media Molecule’s hit. The controls and interface a simple to navigate and the developer went to great lengths to personalize the experience with ModNation Racers.

  Everything you do within the game occurs in the ModSpot. A central hub where about 5 other players (when you’re online) will congregate and you can see them drive around. There are all kinds of things to do in the ModSpot. Here you have access to the races, including Online, Online Split-Screen (up to 2 players split-screen), Offline Split-Screen (up to 4 players split-screen) and the Career Mode.

  The Online racing experience is pretty smooth. Players can join a random match, or they can host matches with their friends, or just for other players to join. You can choose to race with “XP Mode” where your online profile will gain XP to rank up among other players. The competition is pretty intense though, so make sure you’re familiar with how to handle the karts before heading to this mode. If you’re not in the “XP” mood, you can just race casually for fun. All of your stats from races are tracked to your profile, and you can see the stats for each track that you’ve raced on as well.

  Driving karts is a breeze. I equate this something slightly more complicated than Mario Kart 64. You accelerate and brake, fire weapons after picking up the powerups, and you *absolutely* must learn how to drift. Pressing and holding the ‘X’ button allows you to perform a drift around corners which fills a boost meter on the side of the screen. The boost meter is used for sideswiping opponents, boosting your speed, or using the shield equipped to your kart. It will take a lot of practice to get the timing down on your shield as it only lasts a few seconds with a full meter of boost, but it can make the difference between placing 1st and getting blown away at the last second of the final lap. Weapons come in 3 different styles: Missiles, Lightning and Sonic attacks. Each powerup can be upgraded up to 3 times. Stage 1 attacks are pretty light and can only hit 1 car (the Sonic level 1 weapon has a pulse discharged from around the car so it could potentially hit multiple enemies), Stage 2 attacks will hit 2 to 3 racers in front of you, and level 3 attacks can knock everyone out (think ‘Blue Shell’ from Mario Kart) if you manage to fire it from last place. It can be difficult to do this though, as if you are hit with a weapon, you will lose your current weapon and have to pick up a new powerup. Weapons appear to be random too, just like other kart racers.

  So far, it sounds like a pretty good game right? Well, it is; the only catch is that with each thing that you do in this game, you might as well take a bathroom break or go fix a sandwich, because you will literally be waiting over a minute for some of the tracks to load. Not that this is a game-breaking deal for me though, the developer has stated that they will be patching the game to reduce load times which will be a well-liked feature when it is finally released.

  The Career mode pits you the player against 25 different courses with challenges and shortcuts littered throughout the courses. It will probably take you a few tries to beat each track, especially since there are “achievements” within each track to unlock new items used in the Creation Studios. You will likely want to collect all of these, as the creation tools expand exponentially every time you add a new item to your creative pallet. Some of these challenges are “Grudge Matches”, where after defeating an opponent on the track AND finishing 1st place, that opponent will challenge you 1-on-1 for the right to use their mod in the game. These matches are TOUGH, and you will need to be an expert at the course and handling your kart if you even are going to stand a fighting chance at beating these. Also littered on each course are tokens that can be used to purchase new items in the Shop, which is located in the ModSpot and the Creation Studio.

  Now for the cream of the crop: the Creation Studio. Everyone has likely been comparing this game to Little Big Planet because of the customization you can do. In my opinion, this allows way more customization of your character than LittleBigPlanet. Through the use of unlocked accessories, hair pieces, clothing, shoes, gloves, hats, eyes, ears, noses, mouths, etc. you have the option to make your character as strange or awesome as you see fit! After putting the body together, you can change the color of anything you place on your mod, including different styles (which can be tweaked with a full color wheel) that can be unlocked. The color system is something that I tremendously applaud for this game. Anytime you place an object on your mod, or use something of a certain color, that color is added to either of the “Mod Colors”, or “Kart Colors”, so you can easily match colors and set things up just the way you want quickly and easily. It’s so easy I was able to create look-alike characters from TV shows and movies within just a few minutes. There also is an aspect of stickers for the creation studios where you can layer and tweak each and every sticker that you want to put on your mod. From shapes, letters, numbers and other decals like flames, etc. you can dream up your imagination and put it on your mod or kart. Then you can resize, rotate, skew, cut, copy, layer and repaste your sticker designs on other parts of your mod or kart and even save them as sticker sets to use again later.

  Each portion of the Creation Studio is divided into sub-menus which are not too complicated, but you will need more than just the game’s instruction manual to become a master. UFG really did an excellent job with the creators, allowing simple creation, or really advanced creation. Each part you put on your mod or kart can be left as is when it first goes on, or you can dive into the deep customization abilities to create something so genuine that only you could create it. The L2 and R2 buttons are used to move to the next “area” of that specific menu, and the L1 button is usually reserved for advanced / basic edit toggling. The triangle button is typically the color option, whereby a color wheel can be viewed by pressing triangle again. Once you get the system under your belt you’ll be amazed at the creations that you can come up with in ModNation Racers.

  To top it off, you can then select your mods and karts that you have created, OR downloaded to race with friends and online/offline. That’s right. Upload your creations to the PlayStation Network, and let other people download them. You can also allow players to “remix” your creation, where they will edit your creation and then re-upload it to the PSN. You still get the “creator” credit, and they get the remix credit. This system is absolutely solid, and it works extremely well. The Share spot of ModNation Racers is really easy to use and the developers took care to make sure that the karts, mods and tracks people create would be easy to find and download. There’s an area for “Most Downloaded”, “Most Raced”, “Newest”, or you can search by keywords which are used to describe your creation when you publish it.

  The Track Studio is the only creator I haven’t talked about. It’s massive, and incredibly deep. Choose from 1 of 4 themes for your track and you drive a steam-roller to pave your track. You can create a simple loop, or you can go back and add monster jumps, bridges, tunnels, bank the road, make it narrow, add road hazards like construction barrels, crates, even rotating platforms. I could literally write a whole review on just this editor. It is that deep. You can change the elements and the direction that the sun shines, level of the water, and the type of road you will drive on. You can also create shortcuts, forks in the road, and add boost pads and weapons. Just like in LittleBigPlanet, all of the tracks in the career mode were made using the Track Studio. It’s just incredible.

  I played this game for literally 7 hours straight and I could not stop playing. It is FUN to play, and the community’s imagination will blow you away. I saw downright amazing mods that looked like Mario, Iron Man, Sonic the Hedgehog, and even the Master Chief from Halo. Over the coming months players will upload unlimited content to choose from, and race from. If you don’t like what other players do, create your own! It’s that easy. Oh, and if you’re worried about creating a super-looking track that people would actually want to play, you can just Auto-Populate your track in the editor which automatically adds scenery and gameplay items to the track so it looks like it took hours to make, when in reality it was only mere minutes.

  I’ve waited a long time for a game like this to surface. Finally we have something on the PS3 which rivals the greatest kart racers of all time. Long load times will be fixed down the road, but the next generation of kart racing is here. If you’re skeptical about your purchase, download the demo off the PSN. Trust me though when I say, if you buy this game, you will NOT be disappointed.
• 

  J. Mendoza
  May 26th, 2010 on 8:17 am

  Rating

  This isn’t really much of a review, just thought I should a little addition to Keith’s review (since he pretty much nailed it).

  The game is challenging, which is good. You really have to know the ins and outs of the tracks, the shortcuts, and especially the weapons’ first and secondary functions in order to win the races. It also helps to learn the timing of the shield function, because the AI will attack you. A lot.

  As for the customization, the only small flaw (very small) is that you need to race through the Career Mode in order to unlock most of the pieces for the mods/tracks/karts.

  And yes, the load times are a little long, even after the 3.2gb install and the patch that was released along with the game, but it’s a small price to pay for such an awesome and fun game.
• 

  Graham D. Johnson
  May 26th, 2010 on 12:18 pm

  Rating

  Modnation has managed to tear me away from Red Dead, Killzone 2, and CoDMW2. It’s a blast. You probably know how the game works, so here’s a brief rundown of the pros and cons:

  PROS
  
  +Tight handling/racing (improved from beta)
  
  +Fun risk/reward factor with the weapons (3 levels…do you launch it now, or wait for the bigger weapon?)
  
  +Best creation system I’ve ever seen. Molyneux, Wright, and other developers should take notice. I made a legit Casey Jones from TMNT.
  
  +Fun tracks, and the user-created content is already top notch. I spent an hour last night on an “infinite drift” track somebody uploaded. Crazy fun.
  
  +Everything “fits.” The environment/character/track/kart designs all mesh, and it feels like a fun little cohesive world.

  CONS
  
  -Load times. Word on the street is that a patch is on its way.
  
  -As with any kart racer, there is a certain level of cheapness. In action races, you might be first the whole race, and then get blown up 10 yards from the finish line for 3rd place.
  
  -I’ve experienced framerate problems in the ModSpot (the home world/hub). However, I have never seen jankiness in an actual race, so that’s good.

  Most definitely recommended.

  Weird side note -
  
  I want UGF and Sony to continue the ModNation franchise. I want to see ModNation Fighters – a Super Smash Bros-style game where you create your character and weapon effects. User created levels would be crazy, and fighting with Ratchet/Kratos/Nathan would be a blast.

  Take it easy.
• 

  Christopher M. Demars
  May 26th, 2010 on 3:29 pm

  Rating

  I can’t say much more than what was said above. I have played Mario Cart and am finding that ModNation is as much if not tons more fun. The customization, ease of creation, and overall enjoyability is very high.

  I have to agree though with the above that the load times are a bit long however with a game that is this much fun, I can look past the load times. This is a great game no matter whether you’re buying it for your kid, or the kid in you.
• 

  HCS0001
  May 26th, 2010 on 3:58 pm

  Rating

  I remember when the demo first came out for this game- I was completely hooked! I found myself spending hours racing on just that one level playing on expert replaying over and over again trying to beat my best time. The immense exhilaration I got from being in first place and knowing that there’s a whole mob of racers trying all they can to take me down is intense and fueled my “need” for this game!

  Now that I own the full copy I can safely say that this game exceeds my expectations! What a great game!

  The first thing I observe when playing a game is how well the gameplay is. One word: Awesome! The controls are very smooth and dont get too cumbersome for the player which allows for great maneuvering- not too mention that it has one of the best drifting systems I’ve ever witnessed in a racing sim! The weapons are also very polished and easy to execute (although it may seem like the cpu has an advantage sometimes). The race tracks are very well made and never get too complicated- perfect for beginners and adepts alike.

  The graphics are amazing! From the light reflecting off of your mod’s helmet to the race track asphalt, the game really impressed me with it’s stunning visuals. The physics engine used on the game also help make this game look as believable as possible. Although the CGI rendered cutscenes are very well done, the in-game graphic cutscenes seem to suffer from very minor pixelation (e.g. “face sprites” on mods seem to pixelate a little when talking- I guess I just pay too much attention to detail).

  The sound team sure out did themselves on this one. To complement the graphics of the game, the sound makes this a world worth believing- from the engine roar to the (my favorite) silence that ensues from what I like to call the “Blue Bass Boom Missile” that you can unleash on your enemies!

  Ok- the biggest complaint I have about Modnation Racers is the load times. You’ve heard many say that it’s rather lengthy and the fact of the matter is that it get’s frustrating sometimes to have to wait around 30 seconds to a minute to race! Also, when driving around the hub it may get a bit laggy but that’s nothing out of the ordinary when playing online games.

  This game deserves a spot in your videogame shelf! For the racing fan: BUY IT IMMEDIATELY!! For the not-so-into-racing-games-but-am-willing-to-try-it-out gamer: BUY IT EVENTUALLY!!
• 

  tdog
  May 26th, 2010 on 4:51 pm

  Rating

  This is not your Grandmas Kart racer. This game is only limited by YOUR imagination. It has all the awesome modes from a great single player game, great split screen with no slow down, online split screen which is great for me and my wife, and of course awesome online content. There is so much awesome user created content already and more by the minute. Only complaint would be load times but they are working on it.
• 

  Felix
  May 26th, 2010 on 6:55 pm

  Rating

  I’ll bulletpoint my review to make it more concise.

  Graphics:
  
  They are pretty well done, everything fits the personality of the game. It include well detailed maps and characters that give alot of personality to the game and gives me the idea that the developers who made Modnation Racers that they care about the consumers and will not hold back on what they are capable of. The racing tracks are pretty nicely detailed, and so how are the carts and characters. (Well, the main storyline characters.)

  Gameplay:
  
  I know I will sound like a fanboy like this, but the gameplay on Modnation Racer is ALOT more enjoyable than what Mario Kart had to offer. I feel more in control of the game and the controls feels alot better. I like how the drift button is placed. Makes sense.

  Customization:
  
  Thia is what they have done PERFECTLY. It’s like Little Big Planet, but on a racing scale. Custom cart, character, track, and designs. This makes the experience of the game last ALOT, and on the PLUS side you can get XP for having people who use your design…and being able to BANK off of it. That’s truly rewarding.

  Con:
  
  Probably just the load times I had with the game, and sometimes when I get knocked off track it takes awhile for the game to pull me back into the racetrack. Just minor flaws that will probably be fixed with an update.
• 

  J. Storm
  May 26th, 2010 on 11:03 pm

  Rating

  I’ve only owned ModNation Racers for a couple days, but I’m already absolutely certain this is the best kart racer ever made (sorry Mario Kart). This is, simply put, the LittleBigPlanet of racing games.
  
  The base game and tracks are fun in themselves, but the real beauty here lies with all of the customization. Everything from your racer, your kart, to every little detail of the track you’re making is fully customizable. You can choose to make your racer into somebody famous, or choose to make them into something totally outlandish. All the options and how to utilize them are easily learned, so much so that my kids were creating some pretty impressive things in almost no time at all. Even the track creator is amazingly simple to use, much more so than LittleBigPlanet’s level creator.
  
  The load times can get a bit tedious, but with how smooth the frame rates and overall gameplay are, it’s well worth the wait. Replay value is tremendous, and the community is already loaded with user-created content to check out. This game is definitely kid friendly in almost all aspects, but if you let your kids play online I wouldn’t recommend letting them wear a headset, as foul language is rampant and not moderated. That’s not the game’s fault though, it’s pretty much the same with any other online-enabled game out there.
  
  Overall, ModNation Racers is a great game, and I would highly recommend it for young and old alike.