Krakn3Dfx
Platinum Member
Picked up Mod Nation Racers over the weekend. I kind of knew what to expect from the demo, but after the initial 3GB install and a quick race you have to play through initially, I got dropped into ModSpot, where the tracks, characters, etc. are available to browse and download. I gotta say, for a game that's only been out 1-2 weeks, there is already a stunning amount of user made content available, and a lot of it is high quality stuff (quite a bit is ripped from other games/media as well, but we'll ignore that for now, since I love racing as Mr. T in the A-Team van).
The controls are a little wonkier than Mario Kart or Crash Nitro Racing, and the drifting mechanic is weird, but it's fun and you get used to it pretty quickly. I have yet to touch any of the tracks that come with the game, but I've downloaded and raced 15-20 user made tracks, ranging from tracks designed soley for unlocking achievements to a track through the city in Infamous to recreations of some pretty awesome Mario Kart tracks. I really enjoy the opportunity for verticality in the game, and most of the good tracks have some great air time and drifting. The game also looks really good and reminded me of Little Big Planet in racing form more than once.
My biggest complaint is everybody's biggest complaint I think, the horrendous load times. Apparently the developers are working on a patch to help, here's hoping it's out sooner than later. I haven't had any of the connection issues that I've heard from other people who have played the game, and it generally only took 5-10 seconds before the other players in my ModSpot session to pop in. Character and track downloads only take 2-3 seconds to complete, and that's a huge plus as well. I remember spending 2-3 minutes waiting for levels in LBP to download and being ready to move onto something else by the time they were done.
The track and character creation system in the game seems pretty stunning. I messed around with it a bit and can imagine making some pretty elaborate creations, but I'm one of those people that just likes to enjoy the stuff others make, so I doubt I'll go too deep into that area of the game.
If Mod Nation Racers had just been a kart racer in a box w/ a bunch of pre-built tracks and a limited number of characters to play, I would probably say it's about as worthwhile as pricing on other kart racers like Mario and Sega Kart Racing. With the virtually unlimited amount of content that's already been created and that is available online though, I have no regrets about picking it up. If they can resolve the load time issues, I would say this game will be damned near perfect as a kart racer. I wasn't looking for what Blur or Split Second brought to the table personally, but MNR out Mario's Mario Kart, and that's a pretty big feat IMO.
The controls are a little wonkier than Mario Kart or Crash Nitro Racing, and the drifting mechanic is weird, but it's fun and you get used to it pretty quickly. I have yet to touch any of the tracks that come with the game, but I've downloaded and raced 15-20 user made tracks, ranging from tracks designed soley for unlocking achievements to a track through the city in Infamous to recreations of some pretty awesome Mario Kart tracks. I really enjoy the opportunity for verticality in the game, and most of the good tracks have some great air time and drifting. The game also looks really good and reminded me of Little Big Planet in racing form more than once.
My biggest complaint is everybody's biggest complaint I think, the horrendous load times. Apparently the developers are working on a patch to help, here's hoping it's out sooner than later. I haven't had any of the connection issues that I've heard from other people who have played the game, and it generally only took 5-10 seconds before the other players in my ModSpot session to pop in. Character and track downloads only take 2-3 seconds to complete, and that's a huge plus as well. I remember spending 2-3 minutes waiting for levels in LBP to download and being ready to move onto something else by the time they were done.
The track and character creation system in the game seems pretty stunning. I messed around with it a bit and can imagine making some pretty elaborate creations, but I'm one of those people that just likes to enjoy the stuff others make, so I doubt I'll go too deep into that area of the game.
If Mod Nation Racers had just been a kart racer in a box w/ a bunch of pre-built tracks and a limited number of characters to play, I would probably say it's about as worthwhile as pricing on other kart racers like Mario and Sega Kart Racing. With the virtually unlimited amount of content that's already been created and that is available online though, I have no regrets about picking it up. If they can resolve the load time issues, I would say this game will be damned near perfect as a kart racer. I wasn't looking for what Blur or Split Second brought to the table personally, but MNR out Mario's Mario Kart, and that's a pretty big feat IMO.
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