Last year Sony released one of their most creative new IPs with LittleBigPlanet and its unique Play, Create, Share. Media Molecule took customization and the tools to build levels in their game and put it in the hands of the players. United Front has taken this formula and adapted it for a kart racer and amped it up a little more for ModNation Racers.

            What’s great about the ModNation Racers level creator is how simple it is to use and build tracks that are a lot of fun to race on. It’s similar to LittleBigPlanet but the toolset is far easier to use. To lay down a track all you do is drive around and the track pops up behind you. You can change the elevation while you’re laying the track down or edit after you’ve finished with the basic shape. You can adjust just about anything in your track from the slant of a turn to the time of day that you’re racing and the types of roads to drive on.

There are power ups, traps, hazards, jumps and boost pads that you can add, change and tweak. If you don’t think you have the patience to sit and mess with every little nuance and detail to your track you can simply hit the auto-populate button and watch as your simple track turns into a course that looks like you spent hours on. Don’t like how a couple of turns are? Simply erase them and repave a new section.

I am sure he means business...

            You can do more then just make a custom track. You can build your own kart and decorate it however you want with the only limits being what you can make with the tools given to you. They give you all kinds of body types to choose from that look similar to real life cars like the Challenger or a Lamborghini. You can customize everything with your cart from the wheels, seats and engines to what materials the car is made out of, like cardboard. Once that’s all done you paint and add designs to your car with the only limitations being what you can come up with.

 

            The same thing goes for your Mods, the avatars you make that drive your cart. You’re given a blank white body and are given free reign to personalize it the way you want. There are some great Mods from Iron Man to Nintendo’s Mario or any one of your favorite characters. If it’s popular, some one has probably spent the time making it. United Front games took the play, create, share which means any of the Mods, Karts or tracks you see you can most likely download and use or modify.

            But all of that would be pointless if the racing wasn’t any fun, rest assured it is fun. The game runs out of a hub, similar to what you’d find in Home, where you can access each part of the game to race online or go to the creation station or just chill out with other players if you’re connected online. The game plays out like any other Kart racer you’ve played with weapons, speed pads and traps built into each track. There aren’t all that many weapons to pick up but they get upgraded the more pickups you get before firing them off. With all the rockets, traps and speed pads each race is guaranteed to be a close one.

            It’ll be interesting to see what you can get once this game is released with more then just the handful of players that were in the beta. This game is sure to please kart and arcade race fans and will certainly be huge for Sony when the game finally hits store shelves later this year.

 

 

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