Anybody who’s anybody remembers days spent playing Mario Kart. Hours passed yelling at your friends after being blasted with a shell. On a more recent note a huge portion of gamers now remember hours spent building up their sack boy or girl into a scary monster, cute creature,or anything and running through the most openly creative platformer we’ve ever played. United Front Games has now combined those two experiences utilizing characters inspired by Urban Vinyl, and a battle racer weapons system.

Modnation is built on a simple premise, create your own unique character and kart, and race them to your hearts content. When you’re done racing through the store, or feel like a change of pace you can then move into the track creation tools, I will say the advertising mentioned the tools were simple and quick, and for the most part I’ll agree. I found myself struggling to put items correctly and straight, or fully populate the area with items, I am exceptionally thankful that if I make a bad map, (and I plan on making plenty) another player will be able to download it and remix it, fixing my follies, or improving on my genius!!

The load times for Modnation are bit painful, roughly 30 seconds to a minute in between races when switching tracks, and about the same amount of time when switching screens, UFG has promised a patch to fix this soon, but until the patch hits i’m willing to suffer through the load screens to enjoy the racing mechanic.

One of the biggest joys i’m finding in Modnation are the the simple details in body and engine type. When you choose a different body the weight, speed, and control all change for that kart, my box racer also known as boxy brown (which is literally built from a cardboard box), is much faster than my 1950s Mercedes Benz looking kart is clunkier, handles better, and is definitely slower.

The creation of your character or “Mod” is also something that gets progressively more fun as you win more races, or accomplish more racing feats, for example placing in the top 3 or taking first in some races unlocks more items for your mod, karts, or track creation. Some of the feats including scoring a certain amount of drift points, draft points, taking out racers at certain points on the map, or even taking out a certain number of racers coupled with winning first.

Modnation isn’t perfect, but it has every element I loved about LBP, and every element I loved in a good kart racer. I’m sure after a few weeks the amount of custom content will far outweigh any issues the game has, and after a few patches from UFG, i’m sure Modnation will be found flawless. I can hope only for this game to have large amounts of success.

Loved:

• Quick and easy creation system for users
• Slapstick humor
• Solid kart controls

Hated:

• AI bombarding me with weapons right before I hit the finish line costing me my first place ranking.
• Laggy menu screen while driving my kart to the different areas.
• the occassional opportunity to get my kart stuck off track, or in wierd crevices causing me to lose

Score:

• Graphics – 9
• Audio – 9
• Replay – 10
• Gameplay – 8
• Overall – 9