BrockTalk

PLAY, CREATE, SHARE

Modnation Racers is a kart racing game set in Sony's Play, Create, Share division that was created with the release of Little Big Planet. If you haven't played LBP, the whole idea of these games is to create a set of tools around a game concept and let the players go crazy dreaming up their own creations while allowing them to share them with the rest of the Playstation world. With the extreme popularity of social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook this genre of gaming was inevitable, and there is much fun to be had.

MODNATION VS. LITTLE BIG PLANET

Little Big Planet was released to much acclaim, but was still without its' share of problems. Chief among these was the level creation tool. While there have been many many a player that have created amazingly wonderful levels, there were many others who felt the level creation tools were just too intimidating. I'm happy to say that this issue has been solved in Modnation. Creating tracks in Modnation Racers is extremely intuitive and easy, allowing creators to put together a track in a matter of minutes by including features that allow you to auto-populate terrain and automatically close the track. Add this to the fact that this ease of use is also used to allow players to create their own racers and karts as well. This game has been out a couple of months and the sheer amount of creativity shown in the tracks, carts, and racers is simply amazing. If you have a favorite movie, t.v., or video game character I can almost guarantee someone has already created it.

Finding other players creations is also much more user-friendly in MNR. In fact, when you first load up the game it drops you into the 'mod-spot' which features among other things the top three most popular racers and karts being downloaded, so finding what's hot is extremely easy.

A.I. HATE YOU

The create and share aspects of the game are fantastic, but that would mean nothing if the actual gameplay wasn't any good. So, is it good? Well, the answer is absolutely yes, but absolutely no at the same time. Let me explain. The driving, drifting, and boosting feel spot on, while the single player tracks packaged into the campaign offer tons of fun. Power-ups, a kart-racing main-stay, are also included and offer a unique take by allowing the power-ups to increase in strength if you collect multiple power-ups before firing one off. This is all well in good, but is also where one of the games MAJOR problems lie. The floodgates of hell itself can and will be released on you at any moment from the computer A.I., especially if you are in first place, and more often than not will take you completely out of the race. In fact, the A.I. in this game is completely relentless. You may think you have a comfortable first place lead, but you're slamming on the boost anyway, when all of sudden you get passed by one or more racers. And so the computer is sure you have no chance at catching back up with them you will then quickly get bombed by three different people. That's right, your very comfortable first place lead has quickly changed to last, and no prayer to God will allow you to recapture that first place position before the end of the race. So, that's frustrating yes, but a little challenge builds character right? Well I'm not finished. Each track also offers 3 challenges that upon conquering will reward unlockables that can be used for your creations. This gives each track a fun new goal to complete, but the catch is that 90% of these challenges require you to not only complete the challenge, but also get first place. Many of these challenges are difficult enough on their own, but pair them with the fact that you have to finish first while competing against A.I. that is completely unfair, and it will make you want to punch a baby square in the face. Now video games do from time to time get me frustrated, but I can't recall anger of this magnitude since I was 10 years old, and screaming THIS GAME CHEATS!!!! Any player of old-school games knows this to be true, as games were much harder back in the day.

LOADING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Another major problem rears its' ugly head as soon as the game loads up....it just keeps loading. When you finally get the game up and running every time you finish a race and move on to another, the loading time is absolutely ridiculous. All games have some loading, but I have gone to the kitchen to get a snack and drink and come back to still see the loading screen. Unacceptable.

BUT, WAIT! THERE'S STILL HOPE

So, it seems my experience with the game was not a unique one. In fact, so many have complained about the difficulty and loading times that Sony has announced that a patch is being released to fix both of these problems. The patch is scheduled to release next week and if it fixes these issues like they say it will my complaints will be null and voice because the game underneath these problems is a very fun and polished kart racer. I spent many a day playing Super Mario Kart on SNES with my brother, and while numerous kart racers have been created since, many of which are not so great, Modnation Racers creates a perfect mix of the fun from Mario Kart with the creation and community tools of Little Big Planet. If you were a fan of one or both of these games then definitely give MNR a try, but you might just wait until the patch is released next week so no babies are harmed in the interim.