I completely skipped ModNation Racers at launch. The game seemed like a perfect storm of things I’m not really into: kart racers, customization, and post-Mii art direction. I remained ignorant of it until I started working on my PS3 Games Still Playable Online list. In my research I learned about ModNation Racers Revival, which inspired me to pick up a cheap used copy of the game. Digging into it now I’m learning that my initial instincts were correct, but there’s also quite a bit of ambition here, and a surprisingly active community.
At its core, ModNation Racers is a serviceable kart racer. You boost, take shortcuts and hit enemies with weapons. It’s fine, whatever.
But it’s what’s outside of the racing that makes ModNation special. Customizing a character and kart isn’t too special, but the fact that you can share them is. There is still an active community full of people sharing their creations online.
But the wildest part of ModNation is the ability to create tracks. This feature alone gives the game an unlimited level of replayability.
It’s impressive stuff, but the question top of mind for me was “do I actually want to keep playing this game?” And the answer is probably not. As I mentioned earlier, I’m not the biggest kart racer fan. I bounced off Mario Kart World and Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds pretty quickly last year and ModNation’s racing is a step down from both of them. The karts feel a bit floaty, which combined with a slew of race-ruining items just makes driving a bit of a chore. Additionally, the load times between races are absurdly long, which further kills the mood.
Despite its issues, I’m still very impressed by the audacity of ModNation Racers’ ambition. It’s a shame that the game didn’t get a sequel, because that could have given the team a chance to iron out some of the mechanical and technical issues (think LittleBigPlanet 1 -> 2). While ModNation didn’t really resonate with me, you can look to the active creative community and see that it was definitely meaningful to some.
Screenshots and video captured by me from original hardware (PS3) via an HDMI splitter connected to an Elgato Game Capture HD60 S+.
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