ModNation Racers (PS3)

MRC is a far better game than one might expect. Sony have taken a leaf from Nintendo's book and rather than trying to make an ultra-realistic racer (like the much delayed Gran Turismo), have opted for a manic arcade racer. Cutesy characters in no way hinder the enjoyment of the game. I have never been too enthralled with modding cars, especially where it has no performance effect, but MRC modding really is rather fun.I spent the best part of the weekend playing MRC with my 8 year old son. It says something when when a near 40 year old and 8 year old can pick up a game and play. It is a lot of fun. The tracks are very well designed, and the learning curve is perfectly judged. It is not possible to just learn a winning route - you also need to learn how to make use of the track, obstacles, power-ups, swipes, drifting and so on. Every run of a race is different.Where this game is far better than Mario Kart is that it is fast from the first race. I have always found Mario kart to be too slow; it seldom gives that speed rush. MRC ladles it up.The online play of MRC is also better than Mario Kart, with more options and the sheer number of race types and tracks available - really excellent.In the career mode, there are cut scenes to unfold the storyline and pre-race "analysis" from the sports show anchors - these are really well done, very well crafted and superbly scripted. Top notch production quality...My only gripe with the game is the very slow load times. And those cut scenes (above) are one culprit. As entertaining as they are, they take quite a while to load and then, you have to sit through another wait for the track to load and the race to begin. I just feel that this could have been better worked out and it surprises me how long it takes to load considering this is BD technology.However, that is my only gripe with the game and not enough to remove a star. This is a really well conceived game and a star title on the PS3.

I was really excited for this game to arrive, turns out it wasn't as great as I was expecting, the creation aspects of the game are brilliant! You can create your own racers, cars and even race tracks, which I thought was pretty awesome, however the gameplay itself is pretty boring and only kept me entertained for about a week. Possibly worth buying just for the fact that you can create a lot of things, if you're not too fussed about that though then I wouldn't bother purchasing it.

I had mario karts and i loved it and thought it was the best and only very good game on the wii so i was thrilled when i gave this one a shot and found out how awsome this game is. the problem with mario karts is that once you have completed it then there's nothing else to do. You know all the maps inside and out, you use the same kart/bike all the time and you win everytime (unless your playing against online people) and theres only a certain amount of characters to play as (other then your mii but even they arnt very creative and individual.one of the best things about modnation racers is that you can customize pretty much everything. you can customize you player (mod) and you can make it any colour or pattern and you can also add stickers to them and the clothes you can edit too, if you like the style but dont like the colour then change it! when your done making the mod look amazing then you can move onto your car, give it the body you always wanted and choose a pattern (or not) and work on the engine and the suspension, etc.the modspot reminds me of playstation home but its more fun. you drive around crashing into others and driving up the ramps and drifting around and you can chat to other players via keyboard or mic. you can challenge other players and you can look at other players profile (see how many races they did this week and last week, see their XP, what level they are, etc.)in the modspot there are some screens, one to show you who is here in the modspot, a coming attractions board, top mods (see the top 3 mods players have made) top karts (top 3 karts...), a top tacks board (where you can play the tracks people have made that are voted the best), Hot Lap board (see who has done the fastest laps on tracks and see if you can knock them off the leaderboard), Share (where you can download other peoples creations (mods/cars/tracks) that they have published/shared, i currently have 3 downloaded mods, one is a bear which i will not mention about on here, another is rosalina and the last one is vanille from final fantasy XIII, all where made by other players) creation station (where you edit your mod and car) and the race station (where you go to do the career mode/story mode, quick races, online races and split screen races.)One more thing about Share is that there is a HUGE amount of mods you can download from there, ive seen all sorts there, like (please excuse the spelling mistakes) : Stewie Griffin, Homer Simpson, Sephoroth, batman, the joker, sackboy, cloud strife, squirtle, mario, ironman, spiderman, luigi, the guy from monopoly, silvester (looney toones cat), bender, ronald mcdonald, zombie ronald mcdonald, goku, link, mr t, stitch, the cookie monster, jigsaw, jack skeleton, yoda, that blue thing from avatar (i cant remember the names from that film), knuckles, gizmo, and the list goes on for hundreds of pages. there is soo much choice!!bad points about the game:the camera, it gets annoying, i just want to look around at my surroundings and the camera does you weird crazy spin thing in one direction and i have to drive a bit to get it normal again.the load times, seriously i could clean my house in the same time that it takes for it to load.all in all a great game, plenty of fun and lots to do so i think its well worth the money, i just hope they will sort the camera and load times then its 5 stars all the way.

loading screen time is ridiculous!

No cooperative mode, playability limited, I bought to play with my friends, but Litllte big planet karting or F1 race starts are better

Modnation racers from start to finish is superb,brilliant & loads of other commendable words. The gameplay is just right for a kart racer, the physics, drift mechanics etc. are all really good. The weapons selection & track design is 1st class making this a really fun title. The customisation in this is very deep, I was surprised at how deep it actually is, you can modify everything from clothes, hair etc for your mod to crazy supension wild spoilers etc. for your kart. There are loads of options to choose from, so you can make something unique no matter what level you are at. The career mode is surprisingly lengthy with quite a lot of events & increasing difficulty as you go through, the presentation within the game is excellent with a lot of thought being focused on the career & also the mulitplayer options which does include split screen, YES!! Overall this game delivers on a massive scale, the online is fun & there is a large community gathering & increasing by the day. So pick this up because you won't be disappointed.P.S Load times are now much quicker due to a patch that was made available on the games release day & DLC will make an appeareance in the future so it will be well worth investing in it.