For a console that tends to view itself as fairly ‘hardcore’, the Playstation 3 has shown off some of the cutest games out there, such as LBP and Eye Pet. Now Sony have decided to bring the same customizable fun from LBP and breed it with racing. Modnation Racers is the love child of this mixture, but will Modnation Racers soar to pole position?
Surprisingly for a racing game, Modnation Racers offers the player a story and a decent story at that, which unfolds in short cutscenes before and after races. The plot revolves around a character who is about to start his Modnation racing journey. With the help of an unsuccessful car paint woman and a crazy old man, he will have to make his way through the ranks to become a Modnation Racing Champion. The story is surprisingly entertaining and offers a different take on the racing genre with its great voice acting and quirky humor.
Players will inevitably make the comparison between Modnation and Mario Kart as these two titles do have something in common. In Modnation, players will choose among a series of different cars to compete for that first place position by collecting and shooting power-ups at your competitors. The power-ups include missiles, speed boosters, sonic waves and a range of other abilities. Once you’ve picked up a particular power up you will continue to increase its level as you drive through more power-up bubbles, which allow you to max out your power at level 3 and thereby creating the most dangerous form of that power-up. A word of caution to this tale: should you choose to build up a power and you are hit by an opponent, you will lose it all. There is also a boost bar, which will fill up with style points which can be achieved by drafting, drifting and especially by dropping some fancy tricks during mid-air jumps.
Modnation offers players a range of different race modes (Online Race, Quick Race, Split-Screen and Career) which will be present within the ‘ModSpot’: an arena which allows you to free roam about and choose what you would like to do. In addition to this players will also be able to enter the ‘Creation Station’ which will allow you to customize you character, your car, as well as build your very own racing circuit. The character and car customization is simply sublime and offer players even more room for craziness than LBP. The possibilities are in fact endless. Track customization is just as cool and user friendly to the point where you’ll be creating your own tracks in no time.
The visuals of Modnation are highly stylized from the characters bodies (which lack any true proportion), to the squashed and mishapen vehicles and many crazy tracks. Overall the visuals are very sharp and fit in perfectly with the feel of the game. The level design is very unique and this can be easily seen with some of the ridiculous looking track layouts which are nothing short of awesome.
When it comes to the moment of judgement, Modnation Racers is a great little racing title. It offers the players loads of crazy racing time as well as plenty more time to spend creating characters, cars, as well as tracks. If you own a PS3 and you’re tired of the run-of-the-mill racing games, this is a must have.
