Frankie_Says_Relax
06-01-2010, 11:09 AM
Picked the game up at NAVA and have been completely engrossed over the holiday weekend.
I'm a huge huge Mario Kart fan but have never really enjoyed the other kart racing offerings from 3rd parties ... even in the event that they were solid racers like some of the Crash Team Racing titles, none of them have had the longevity that the Mario Kart titles do IMO.
Mod Nation Racers is pretty damned brilliant from a technical standpoint and I think it's going to stand the test of time based on the user-generated content aspects. The graphics and physics are perfect, it has the minimalist control scheme that a Kart racer needs, along with the familiar trappings such as drifting, drafting, hopping, weapons, etc. that you'd both expect and want.
The game play feels like it draws influence from some really great places ... Mario Kart obviously, but also OutRun Coast to Coast and Wipeout
Online play is very very solid and four player split screen is in full effect for on the couch sessions if that's your thing.
But, where the game really shines is the creation tools and online sharing options.
One of the (many unfortunately) stumbling blocks of the brilliant but flawed Little Big Planet was the difficulty curve in terms of "making things" and "sharing things".
M.N.R. does NOT suffer from either of those. Making racers, cars, tracks and polishing things down to the most minute details is both simple and intuitive.
I jumped in with practically no tutorials and was able to fashion a great looking racer (think creating a Mii with 100X more detail options) and detail a car to my liking just based on the on-screen button/tool details.
I haven't really spent a lot of time with the track creation tools, but from what I have done/seen it's equally as simple and can produce some pretty fantastic results.
Another area where the game shines above/beyond any other Kart title is the online interactions ... when you boot up you drop into the "hub world" where you can see all the other racers driving around in real time ... you can stop, chat (voice or keyboard) share creations (racers, cars, tracks), hook up to launch into a race with other racers, or just tool around the hub world jumping, doing stunts and smashing into each other. As great as the Mario Kart Wii online matchmaking was ... this is a layer of social gaming in a Kart Racer that was never ever there before.
Continuing in the theme of "ease" of doing things ... the areas where you can search for and download creations are super simple to navigate and use and creations can be searched for by name or viewed by top stats (ratings, downloads, etc.), creations can be rated and commented on, and the top rated racers and cars are on display in the hub world (currently Mario, Iron Man, and Spider Man are in the top spots for racers and The A Team Van, The Mystery Machine, and a Ferrari Indy Car are the top created cars.) ....
You're also rewarded for creating things that are well rated and highly downloaded via your user statistics, I'm not 100% sure how this benefits your abilities, but it appears that there's a benefit other than notoriety to creating stuff and sharing it with others, which is great motivation to get people to build and share quality stuff.
I've only had it for a few days and I've only scratched the surface of what you can do ... but from the standpoint of a Kart Racing game fan I think that this is perhaps the most brilliant entry in the genre and yet another incredibly solid entry into PS3's lineup of exclusives.
The demo on the PSN is good ... I'm not sure if it does the title all the justice that the full version does (I think the car controls are a BIT tighter in the 1st stock-standard car you get in the retail version) but it's a good idea of what to expect. Also, anything that you create in the demo (racers, car details, tracks, etc.) will carry over to the retail copy.
While they launched simultaneously I can't really speak to the PSP version of the game, only played the demo there and didn't care for the controls as much.
So, yeah. Check it out if you haven't on the PS3.
Really really good stuff.
I'm a huge huge Mario Kart fan but have never really enjoyed the other kart racing offerings from 3rd parties ... even in the event that they were solid racers like some of the Crash Team Racing titles, none of them have had the longevity that the Mario Kart titles do IMO.
Mod Nation Racers is pretty damned brilliant from a technical standpoint and I think it's going to stand the test of time based on the user-generated content aspects. The graphics and physics are perfect, it has the minimalist control scheme that a Kart racer needs, along with the familiar trappings such as drifting, drafting, hopping, weapons, etc. that you'd both expect and want.
The game play feels like it draws influence from some really great places ... Mario Kart obviously, but also OutRun Coast to Coast and Wipeout
Online play is very very solid and four player split screen is in full effect for on the couch sessions if that's your thing.
But, where the game really shines is the creation tools and online sharing options.
One of the (many unfortunately) stumbling blocks of the brilliant but flawed Little Big Planet was the difficulty curve in terms of "making things" and "sharing things".
M.N.R. does NOT suffer from either of those. Making racers, cars, tracks and polishing things down to the most minute details is both simple and intuitive.
I jumped in with practically no tutorials and was able to fashion a great looking racer (think creating a Mii with 100X more detail options) and detail a car to my liking just based on the on-screen button/tool details.
I haven't really spent a lot of time with the track creation tools, but from what I have done/seen it's equally as simple and can produce some pretty fantastic results.
Another area where the game shines above/beyond any other Kart title is the online interactions ... when you boot up you drop into the "hub world" where you can see all the other racers driving around in real time ... you can stop, chat (voice or keyboard) share creations (racers, cars, tracks), hook up to launch into a race with other racers, or just tool around the hub world jumping, doing stunts and smashing into each other. As great as the Mario Kart Wii online matchmaking was ... this is a layer of social gaming in a Kart Racer that was never ever there before.
Continuing in the theme of "ease" of doing things ... the areas where you can search for and download creations are super simple to navigate and use and creations can be searched for by name or viewed by top stats (ratings, downloads, etc.), creations can be rated and commented on, and the top rated racers and cars are on display in the hub world (currently Mario, Iron Man, and Spider Man are in the top spots for racers and The A Team Van, The Mystery Machine, and a Ferrari Indy Car are the top created cars.) ....
You're also rewarded for creating things that are well rated and highly downloaded via your user statistics, I'm not 100% sure how this benefits your abilities, but it appears that there's a benefit other than notoriety to creating stuff and sharing it with others, which is great motivation to get people to build and share quality stuff.
I've only had it for a few days and I've only scratched the surface of what you can do ... but from the standpoint of a Kart Racing game fan I think that this is perhaps the most brilliant entry in the genre and yet another incredibly solid entry into PS3's lineup of exclusives.
The demo on the PSN is good ... I'm not sure if it does the title all the justice that the full version does (I think the car controls are a BIT tighter in the 1st stock-standard car you get in the retail version) but it's a good idea of what to expect. Also, anything that you create in the demo (racers, car details, tracks, etc.) will carry over to the retail copy.
While they launched simultaneously I can't really speak to the PSP version of the game, only played the demo there and didn't care for the controls as much.
So, yeah. Check it out if you haven't on the PS3.
Really really good stuff.