ModNation Racers Preview

While in Vancouver for the second annual GDC conference, I was also lucky enough to be invited to the ModNation Racers press preview event at United Front Games. ModNation Racers is an upcoming kart racing title, set to release on PS3 and PSP at the end of this month. The game utilizes the “Race, Create, Share” motto - reflective to that of LittleBigPlanet - which emphasizes user-generated content and extensive levels of customization available. After a studio tour, the attending press members were able to learn more details about the title, as well as get some hands-on racing.

When taking on LittleBigPlanet’s slogan, United Front Games set the bar quite high. LPB is an extremely successful title that offers nearly endless creative possibilities and seemless online sharing. However, ModNation Racers looks to have not only matched, but in some cases surpassed the customization levels of LPB. The story in ModNation is rather light, served with basic elements and humor in order to aid player’s progress through the campaign. The graphics and art style are a mix between realistic imagery and cartoony visual elements. This adds a certain layer of personality to the game, keeping the player grounded in realistic settings but adding fun and bright color palettes to the world.

The first part of the presentation focused on character customization. This is where ModNation Racers seems to have much greater range of options than something like LPB. To start off, there are tons of various skin colors and styles, with all styles having fully customizable color ranges. There are over 200 different eyes and 20 mouths, each with their own set of unique animations for every occasion, as well as the ability to customize all layers of color. When it comes to clothing and accessories, ModNation once again exceeds LPB in the player’s ability to complete customize their look with complex and unique clothing. All clothing, just like body features, can be completely color customized at every layer. There are various stickers and emblems you can place on your character, but it doesn’t stop with just assigning a position and size. All decorations actually have texture slider properties such as rubber, shine, metal and cloth – allowing for tons of interesting and unique visual combinations of the same sticker object. ModNation Racers’ character customization seemed to surpass LittleBigPlanet’s SackBoy on many levels.

Next, we were shown the vehicle customization interface. It looked quite familiar at this point, providing the same wide range of options to customize your ride and make it unique. While the vehicle customization “cycle” (pick body, then accessories, then color, etc) is similar to other racing games, the process is once again enhanced by the deep level of customization options. All vehicle visual accessories have similar texture properties sliders, allowing users to create completely unique visuals for their cars. All cars come with a full range of body types, seats, engines and other common elements – of course, each with a full range of tweaks and visual options. As I was expecting, all cars in the game perform identically, regardless of their visuals and components. This was done to ensure complete fairness among players, and as not to limit player creativity by making users worry about performance of their selected parts.

Last, but definitely not least, the track creation tool was shown. Optimized to work with a controller, the tool was actually used by the developers to create the levels that players see in the game, so it was made to be quite powerful but also accessible. After selecting the initial landscape, players are free to roam the provided space in either third person, or right down on the ground in their vehicle. Once ready, the player can select where to start his track by choosing the appropriate tool and begin laying the road. While laying the track, the player can freely adjust the height and the direction of the track – all of the geography on the map will adjust accordingly. As such, the player can just start laying tracks through a set of mountains and the world will adapt to let the track pass through. The texture of the track itself will also dynamically adjust depending on the environment it is being deployed in. Once the track loop is completed (manually or automatically), the player is able to instantly drop into the world and test his creation. A special mention must be made of the Auto Populate feature. This excellent tool will dynamically create all sorts of decorations and objects around the outside of your track, saving the player from tedious work that some do not enjoy. The tool will also dynamically place boosts and other powerups on the track based on the layout. It was also noted that all tracks in the game (user and developer created) can be edited (“remixed”) by anyone, and then re-uploaded to share with the world. The original creator’s name always stays in map information, and the editor’s name is added.

After the presentation concluded, I was able to get some hands-on time with the game. At first, I explored the interface in the game, which is based on in-game visuals. Driving around in an enclosed area, you are able to see the various menu options available, and driving up to a certain object and hitting a button allows you to enter that menu. Alternatively, hitting Start lets you navigate the classic text-based main menu. I poked around the character, vehicle and track creation tools, all of which were just as impressive as they seemed during the presentation. After exploring the features available, I decided to take on a race with 7 other AI opponents. There are two difficulty sliders before the race, one for AI and one for the overall track difficulty. Having set both to “medium”, I began my race of 9 laps around the track. At this point Mat Thomas, a game designer at United Front, joined me. Throughout the race we chatted about the game and its features, and concluded with a brief interview (watch for it to be posted soon!).

Having limited experience with the kart racing genre, I was nonetheless instantly able to adjust to the controls and physics of the game. The pure racing was solid, cars felt responsive and the drifting was well implemented. Of course, the biggest appeal in the race was the powerups. As I raced around the track, red orbs appeared each time on the track, which represented various weaponry in the game. There are three levels to each weapon, so being patient and collecting three orbs provided me with the most powerful weapon effect, but if I was knocked out or destroyed, the weapon meter was back to zero.

As expected, there is also a boost meter which is filled by drifting. The meter refills with drifts, and it remains untouched if you crash or get blown up. The boost can then be used at any time, providing extra speed for a short amount of time. As the boost meter fills though, and reaches certain checkpoints, it doubles as your personal shield, allowing the player to block incoming enemy attacks. In addition to player combat, the track itself was littered with gaps, tight corners and dynamic traps that all added to the already wildly intense racing experience. At the end, I was able to finish in 3rd place after falling behind a number of times. The AI seemed to be fair and clever, both in using their weapons against each other and defending from my attacks, and without any rubberband effect.

From the official presentation to the time I finished my race, ModNation Racers continued to look like an impressive title with seemingly endless customization options, but also solid gameplay and community support. With four player split-screen, easy sharing and fun racing, United Front Games have crafted a title that seems very fit to take on the crown as PS3’s best kart racing game. Thanks to LittleBigPlanet’s groundwork on user content creation and sharing, and by adding even more options to the gameplay, ModNation Racers should likely see endless player creativity and sharing, coupled with some great action-packed racing, for many months to come.