ModNation Racers

Preview from Luke - Tuesday, 18 May 2010 @ 3:20am

ModNation Racers delivers a kart racing experience that is a little different to most the others. While the game sticks to the general kart style of drifting, drafting, boosts and weapons, there is a very extensive creative aspect that sets this game apart - think Mario Kart meets LittleBigPlanet.
The tools at your disposal allow you to customise your characters (aka. mods), kart's and tracks in a ridiculous amount of ways. The great thing about the track creator though is the accessibility, an entire course can be made from start to finish in just minutes. But if you want to jump in and slap something together quickly, just lay the concrete for your track and hit the auto populate button – sit back and let the game figure out where to put those power-ups, jumps, traps and pretty up that bland scenery.

Everything that you create in ModNation Racers can be shared online - the user generated content is where I think we will see some amazing things from this game. You can give other players the ability to “remix” your uploaded tracks, this will let them put their own spin on your work, making subtle or dramatic changes to what you've created. The community will be able to vote on all the content, also allowing the top mods and kart designs to be shown within the drivable world menu.

With the brief time that I did have to play, it did deliver some fun kart racing. The course creator shouldn't scare off people that found the LittleBigPlanet editor a little overwhelming. And the online user generated content is what is really going to make this game stand out.

ModNation Racers is due out this Thursday, 20th May for the PlayStation 3 and PSP. We will keep you posted for the full review here on AustralianGamer