Modnation Racers Closed Beta- Preview
Thanks to the creation tools in Modnation Racers, nearly every race will be...unique
It seems that user generated content is all the rage. It’s starting to happen in Rock Band with the Rock Band Network, with games such as LittleBigPlanet pioneering the way people share levels. Yes I know, people on the internet sharing, it’s truly a miracle.
Modnation Racers is United Front’s and San Diego Studios attempt at capturing what made LittleBigPlanet change from a cutesy platformer with floaty controls, to an extensive network of players creating and sharing some strange and bizarre levels. It was impossible not to draw parallels to LBP following ModNation racers unvieling of it’s three concepts: “Race, Create, Share”, very similar to LBP’s “Play, Create, Share”. The fact they are both Sony IP’s just made it feel like this was going to be a kart racing rip off. So when I got chance to particpate in a closed beta, I now have a better idea of where Modnation Racers is going.
The game isn’t finished, most definitely, quite a lot of rough edges and performance issues, but from what I’ve been told, this is pretty much how the feature set will stay for launch, just with some tweaks and polish. You start in what is known as the ModSpot, a hub area with other characters driving about the place. Not exactly that interesting to drive around, but y0u can choose to talk to other players, either through text, emotes and possible speech (was a bit broke).
It's difficult to do a Kart game without ripping other off, so Modnation Racers have introduced some interesting mechanics
What was interesting in this area is the amount of user generated data they are going to pull into it. Whilst that sounds really boring, what it means is that, for example, the top three skins of the day will be on podium places, which in my experience were Killzone, Spiderman and Mario costumes… (Sony will be onto that), as will the top karts, tracks etc. There will be automated daily events, such as time-trials on what’s known as a ‘Hot Track’, as well as Playstation Home style leader boards. In my opinion, this could be the big thing that at least increases user activity in the game world. LBP had very little in the way of displaying what was going on in the community, and I think these automated events and such is a clever way to keep competition up amongst both creators and racing.
Of course, a kart racing game would be nothing without the racing, so Modnation Racers has an area in the ModSpot dedicated to just that. There are online races, ranked races, quick races etc, all with the option of using user created tracks, as well as a Campaign mode, which has an actual story, thought didn’t have chance to try this out. The racing itself felt a little clunky, but most kart games do. For all those wondering, it most definitely has a ‘jump and slide’ mechanic, which builds up boost or shield, a nice homage to the “Mario Karts” of this world, but not a blatent rip off.
The weapons are also an evolution on traditional kart racing mechanics, with three different power levels for each weapon, so the first level may simply blow other racers off the tracks in a small radius, but the third level power up blows everyone in front of you off the track in a violent lightning storm. Which is pretty neat. At the moment, the driving feels OK. It’s a bit tough to judge at this stage, as I suffered a few expected frame rate hitches which I blame for my poor performance, but it’s sometimes difficult to maintain a skid through a corner and basically control it until you get used to the slightly heavy feel of the karts.
Whilst mostly asthetic, the kart creation can be as simple or complicated as you want
So that’s racing…What else was there. Well, I suppose I better talk about some of the creation tools in the game, as it’s touted as the ‘big thing’. You can enter the “create zone”, which is like a workshop area, with four different sections. The easiest is “Share” allowing you to, obviously, share what you’ve created online. There are also creation areas for tracks, karts and character skins. Both karts and skins have similar design layouts, you use a radial menu to pick out what options you want to change. I really like some of the animation it’s got going on with the creation tools, with parts appearing on karts in an animation I can’t really explain with text and everything has a nice texture to you, from the novelty ‘cardboard’ chassis you can install, to the different engine types, which don’t really have an effect on performance, but look and sound different. The character creator is very similar to this, though I found a little more limited in how your person could look, but I only had a fraction of what will be available to unlock and use in the main game. Put it this way, you will most definitely look unique just by spending a short time in the creation area.
The main draw to the “Create” zone is the track creator and rightly so. Whilst not being able to offer the variation of a game like LittleBigPlanet, it succeeds by making it really easy to make a track. Easy enough for a creative dullard like me to do it. You start off with the bulldozer tool, which you use to map out the basic track layout. You essentially drive it like you would a kart, but with some practice, you can pull off some tracks that actually look like race tracks and not car parks. After you’ve looped your track round, you then get an option to auto-populate it with all the scenery, track items and the rest of the miscellany that goes along with a kart track. If your a perfectionist, you won’t want the game to automatically add boost strips, but I found it does a pretty sensible job at not ruining everything. Obviously, you can go in and change the terrain, add jumps and finely craft your track, and these will no doubt rise to the top, but the ease of use of the editor makes it far more accessible. I can’t really run down all the editor has to offer, so check out the video below for some examples of the stuff you can do with it.
Generally, I think the tone they are shooting for in Modnation Racers is a nice swing in the right direction. A light hearted and eccentric (but not overly ‘wacky’) design idea is being used at all levels, from design to voice work. The characters look like things I’ve never seen before, with the different track ’scenary’ taking inspiration from many of the stalwart kart game tracks. The introduction movie has a tongue-in-cheek commentary team, which I’m sure will come in more apparent in the main campaign, but by staying away from the very easy route of ‘cutesy’, Modnation seems to have gained some attitude.
I’m not judging Modnation Racers yet, as that would be unfair and it would also be wrong for me to claim it’s feature set is amazing and you will be blown away, because that’s completely unproven. Even if I told you load times were slow and a bit glitchy, it shouldn’t mean anything because it was not the final version. The ideas in Modnation Racers could really be the ‘Thoroughly modern kart game”, mixing a community orientated premise around good old fashioned split-screen/online racing. Then I can stop saying Crash Team Racing is my favourite kart game of all time…Maybe.
If we haven't bored you, here is some more:
- Video of the Day: Modnation Racers PSP
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- MAG: Massive Action Game- Preview
- Gran Turismo PSP.. your questions answered!
- Battlefield: Bad Company 2- Multi-player preview
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Video of the Day: Modnation Racers PSP | Game Engine on 02.05.2010
[...] came out on PSP, Modnation Racers, Sony’s Mad Kart Kreatathon (Copyright of Me), which we covered a beta of, is coming to PSP, as can be seen in the trailer [...]
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