This thread will probably sink like a stone considering ModNation turns up exactly zero results in search, but what the hell.
ModNation Racers is a fun little kart game that was released yesterday for the PS3, the best way I can describe it is Mario Kart meets Little Big Planet. The big draw is the customizable content such as characters, karts (both are aesthetic only) and a built in level designer. Right now I’m working my way through career mode.
So far the game is very fun, I’m not too into the customize your character stuff, and it’s too early for any really good player levels to have come out, but the gameplay is solid. I’ve played two ranked matches (placing 1st and 2nd), and it holds up pretty well. The biggest flaw right now comes in career mode, where the named “unlockable” racers have some pretty ridiculous Rubber Band AI, though due to the lack of things like blue shells it’s pretty tolerable. The second biggest flaw is that the load times are like 30 seconds per track which gets old pretty fast since the loading screen seems to always use the same music.
As far as kart racing goes, I find it a big step up from Mario Kart, partially because it’s not based on a ridiculous amount of luck (luck is involved, of course, but only at a minimum level). The basics are that you have a boost meter, the boost meter is expended for your basic attack (a sideswipe), shield, and boost. You fill the boost meter by either attacking, or doing certain maneuvers like jumps and spins or drifting. For attacks you have a basic sideswipe, and like any good kart racer, items.
Unlike Mario Kart, the items are incredibly well balanced, and all of them are avoidable. Whenever you hit an item pod you get a random weapon but if you continue hitting item pods the item will level up, up to level 3. The items are varied, there’s a boost that levels up into a teleport/boost combo, a lightning strike that turns into a giant cascading strike for everyone in front of you, a single untargeted missile that turns into a giant homing macross missile massacre, and a small sonic aoe that turns into a massice cascading sonic boom. The items can definitely be match flippers. Though, like I said, there’s no blue shell syndrome because you can shield all of them with good timing (well, except the boost, but you can follow a teleporter through their portal if you’re fast), so the strategy comes into play to use it when you’re so close they can’t predict it and shield, or when they’ve exhausted their boost. I’ve seen matches flip around because everybody used their level 3 items at once and everybody ran out of boost gauge leaving only one or two people left running after the cascading items.
Overall, the game is incredibly fun, has anyone gotten it or planning on getting it? Any good tracks you know of. Racing strategy discussion?