United Front Does What Nintendon't

I’m not a racing-game fan by any means – usually unless a title really innovates the genre or I know I’ll have friends to play it with I don’t ever bother with it. My dad raced cars, I had friends who were into tuner vehicles, but I just never seemed to get into the environment surrounding speed.

The exception to this has always been the Mario Kart series; it’s a title that has yet to disappoint in either entertainment value or playability. When my friends and I get together this game in all of its different iterations is one that we’ve played for hours on end and never really gotten bored of it.

That being said, one of the main reasons why people play the game today, whether it’s on the SNES or the Wii, is because the game is fundamentally the same. While they’ve added new weapons, a couple of gimmicks (oh boy, now you and a friend can ride in the same kart!), and given the graphics some polish, the game is completely identical in all of its versions. Because of this lack of evolution, I have found myself craving a kart racer that is not only beautiful, but is what I expect of a genre that has been around for so long.

ModNation Racers, a game that recently arrived from the greenhorn developer United Front, has its flaws: ridiculous loading times, shoddy multiplayer, and a slightly lag-ridden interface plague the game’s otherwise genius and, honestly, long-awaited evolutions to the genre of “kart-racers”.

Even with those flaws (all of which United Front has promised patches for to either fix or at least improve), Nintendo can learn a lot from United Front before releasing their next title in the Mario Kart franchise:

Online:

While the online multiplayer is a bit off in ModNation Racers, at least it has room for growth. This sadly is not just a criticism on Mario Kart, but on Nintendo’s online offering in general. It doesn’t matter who you want playing your system; they all have friends and all want to play with them. Family fun and good times on the couch are great, nostalgic ideas of a time when playing a game against someone across the world was just a pipedream but that time is long past and now most of my friends are either too busy or just too far away to get together for a Friday night session of beers and red shells.

Customization:

The customization options are where Mod-Nation Racers really shine. It’s a game that allows you, if you have the creative juices, to create whatever crazy types of karts or drivers you want. If you’re not that creative, have no fear—you can always go online and download models that other players have made. This is where you might be asking “just how crazy can you get?” well, I’m driving around as Iron Man in the van from the A-Team.

I pity the foo—or the plumber—who comes up against me.

While I love Nintendo’s cast of drivers, I’ve gotten tired of seeing them as the only playable characters in every single game. Keep those characters in it, but allow me to unlock some zany parts and outfits for my Mii and his kart that allow me to really get creative. Customizing my kart and driver as I unlock new pieces has become one of my favorite parts of MNR and it gives me better incentives than just a trophy or a gold medal to actually keep going in the career mode.

Variety:

Because of the close ties the customization and the racing aspects of the game have with its online parts, there's so much more to do in Mod-Nation than in Mario Kart; an in-game lobby filled with other players you can challenge or just simply talk to, a track editor (which, just like the driver and kart editors, you can share your tracks online), and multiple play modes from simple time attack and racing modes equipped with online leaderboards to daily tournaments that, if you win, showcase your driver as a giant statue for every player to see.

Replay ability in this game isn’t just high; it’s will be a while before you really have to replay the same thing twice if you actually take advantage of everything the game has to offer.

Mod-Nation Racers isn’t a perfect game by any means, but the improvements it brings are worthwhile discoveries not only for players, but for companies that are either veterans to the idea or newcomers.

Tags: Nintendo, Wii, Mario Kart, SNES, ModNation Racers, ps3, United Front

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Lance Darnell

June 08, 2010

I heard on Twitter that while the game isn't the greatest, it's customization makes it worth looking at.

How does the track building and sharing work? Is it like LBP?

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Mark T. Whitney

June 09, 2010

It works a lot like LBP, with a couple of extra tools thrown in to make populating and finishing the tracks a bit easier. You can go completely manual (which is a pain in the ass to do) or you can allow it to auto-populate the traps, power-ups, boosts, etc. for you after you've built your track.

Some people have been ridiculously creative with this and made some pretty unique tracks, others have recreated a lot of the Mario Kart tracks from the older games, and then I've seen some tracks that look like penises and breasts. It works for everyone!

Frank Anderson

This game just isn't grabbing me like I hoped it would. The create-a track/character works OK, but especially the character editor leaves major tweaking options out- like size. Since all the characters are the same size, to me, they kind of all fade into the back ground and its hard to tell the difference between one racer or the next anywhere but at the starting line. The track editor seems to have more potential.

I also don't love the power ups. They are especially small, so I have narrowly missed them a lot more than I should, and they just don't work as well as the ones in Mario Kart do. Your most common projectile shoots way too straight with little auto aim and doesn't ricochet around like the shells in Mario Kart.

There are too many buttons that make driving more frustrating than fun at first.

The loading times are stupid long and I will believe a patch can fix that when I see it.

Overall I just find myself wishing I had bought Blur instead. It is not a horrible game, but it is not great. To me at least.

That came off dickish and I didn't mean it to. I am just jealous that you like the game because I was so sure it would work for me and it didn't. I enjoyed reading your work.

Jon Irwin

There is a part of me that's envious of PS3 owners when I see games like Little Big Planer and ModNation... I love creation in games, or even just software that's a creator's tool, like Flipnote Studio or Mario Paint. So I agree that Nintendo could add all that you say to the next Kart and many would appreciate the effort.... but they ain't gonna do that. Because Kart Wii will have sold about 20 times as many copies as ModNation, and Nintendo is in the business of making money.

It will be interesting to see how both companies move forward, with Sony trying to take what works for competitors (Wii-mote, Kart racers) and tweak it with their HD consumers in mind (Move, Racers), while Nintendo either ignores everybody and trudges ahead stubbornly like always or actually heeds the criticism they've received and tries to appease their older fanbase.

Jason Wilson

Has Modnation Racers creators suffered a copyright-infringement crackdown yet?

Rob Savillo

Jason, I don't think so. Last I checked, Mario, Spider-man, and Iron Man were still the top downloaded characters.

I can't be entirely sure, but I think Sony's relaxed on the whole infringement take-down stuff. Little Big Planet currently sports plenty of levels that would have been removed back in 2008.

June 14, 2010

@Frank the game is far from perfect. But, a game like Blur that is more racer than kart just isn't a turn-on for me.

I actually like the power-ups, both in use and how they are placed on the map. Unlike Mario Kart, the power-ups are very simple but ridiculously accurate; making them even slightly harder to attain but easier to steal from your friends adds a whole new level of backstabbing goodness. The addition of the boost meter that can also be used as a forcefield to block from said devastations is also an amazing addition that can really turn the tide on a game if used correctly. There's just a lot more strategy in this game than in MK -- it feels more adult to me.

@Jon it is a pipe dream to hope Nintendo would evolve one of its most popular franchises -- "if it isn't broke, don't fix it" comes to mind. But competition breeds the necessity to rise up, so hopefully games like Blur and Modnation, if they sell well, will show Nintendo that people are ready for more things to do in their games.

@Jason they haven't yet, and it seems more and more comes out that directly references other titles. It does make the game more interesting/ fun especially with the level editor. Someone recreated the Boo's Mansion level from the SNES Mario Kart -- boardwalk falls and all.