ModNation Racers | a Review
originally published on 15/04/2021;
Hello everyone, I am the indisputable racing champ, G.E.M.Simov, a schmuck so incredible I’ve been compared to Dale Earnhardt multiple times. And, using my expertise in the art of driving a car, fast, I will tell you about ModNation Racers, for the PSP.
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it. Also, I am a gameplay designer and a writer so I got the credentials to talk shit.
Gameplay
This is a racing game, much in the vein of Mario Kart. The vehicles are Karts, the tracks are winding and littered with weird obstacles and jump platforms, while every few meters there are spheres that, once passed through, grant the driver a “weapon” or something to use. So, yes, this is a Mario Kart inspired game. Does it hold up?
It seems to. In essence, the gameplay is smooth and centered around driving along a track, trying to outmaneuver 5 other goons so that first place can be attained. Whenever things go my way, I feel good. Whenever things don’t go my way, I feel really confused, because, half the time, it’s borderline impossible to tell what’s going wrong, until whatever was going wrong goes wrong.
There’s an issue with these “weapons” I mentioned. The issue? No constant, reasonable and stable means to play around them. The projectiles that get fired by the weapons fly so fast that there’s no chance for the player to dodge them, unless they are VERY far away or end up getting very lucky, the hitbox detection is absolutely incredible, and then some of them don’t even seem to work properly.
It’s very weird that, whenever the player uses a “weapon”, and sees an opponent move through the animated field of effect OF said weapon, who then proceeds not to get affected by it at all. It’s very unreasonable how, whenever the player is hit by a missile, their whole Kart explodes and they lose 3 to 4 seconds worth of time, which means everyone gets to get ahead, but when an opponent is hit by a missile, half the time their Karts don’t even get affected at all, while the other half of the time they only get slowed down.
Not only that, but it suffers from that feature of simulating physics. The vehicles supposedly have weight to them, which, in turn, makes the handling a total nightmare, in some situations, because of that simulated weight, making the Kart move in a manner that’s relatively realistic, but wholly unpleasant to deal with. The same applies to the drifting mechanic - hold the X button to drift, but be advised that tapping it will make you hop into the air!
It’s very weird how there’s so many controls implemented into the game, and yet there are two buttons that get unused. It would have been very easy to just relegate some of these functions, which stack on top of one another, to these vacant buttons, but, I guess, it would have been really uncomfortable to deal with. Naturally, that makes sense - having to let go of the analog stick to press one of the arrow buttons is a pain in the ass. But, instead of committing to it and putting a function to all the arrow buttons, they only have functions on 2 of them - each of which, upon being used, has a chance of totally fucking the player over, or, if they are lucky, providing them with an advantage.
Now, these things are actually par for the course when it comes to playing high octane action games on the PSP, if those games have not been designed specifically for the PSP, or if their control schemes were messed up from the get-go. However, let’s get into a mechanic that might be somewhat unique to ModNation Racers.
The BOOST bar. The BOOST bar is a, you guessed it, bar that fills up as certain things are done by the player. Drifting fills it up slowly, Drafting (which is driving right behind another racer) fills it up at the same rate as drifting, hitting an enemy with a “Weapon” fills up an eighth of it, “Sideswiping” an opponent fills up a large amount of it, “Stomping” an opponent does the same, and getting Airtime, or doing tricks while in Airtime, adds a bit.
So, what does the BOOST in the BOOST bar get used for? To BOOST the speed of the player’s Kart. It’s a very significant increase, and it allows the player to get up to nearly maximum speeds for a short amount of time, but it consumes BOOST. That’d be a great means to use the BOOST, but there’s other ways to use it.
It can be used to perform a Sideswipe or a Stomp, which are both ways to fuck over adjacent opponents. Now, the issue here is that these require BOOST to use, so, if the player has none, they can’t use them. Even then, using them while in the vicinity of an opponent does not mean the opponent will get hit. It’s very situational and difficult, because these Karts move like spastic children in a Kindergarten, and the aiming on these two options is quite bad.
Then there’s another means of using BOOST. Shielding oneself. The Shield protects the player from incoming enemy projectiles (other racers using “Weapons”) for a short period of time. That’s the counterplay to someone shooting at you - having the twitch reflexes and knowledge of the game to be able to guess when a projectile has been fired and is moving towards you.
That means that, if the player decides to play this game without sound, the player is gimping themselves - giving themselves a relatively big handicap. That’s… Not that good, considering the PSP is meant to be useable all over. Imagine playing ModNation Racers while riding the Bus, and blasting the music at max volume, so as to be able to compete. Wow.
But that is beyond the point - the fact of the matter is that obtaining BOOST, while ahead, is very hard, because the weapons hit nobody - due to the fact that the player is first - there are no opponents behind whom to draft - because the player is first - there’s nobody to Sideswipe or Stomp, because the player is first, and, as a whole it is a very miserable experience, leaving the player with two questions:
Do I boost? Do I conserve my BOOST for a shield?
But that is not all. The same issue applies for when the player falls too far behind. There are no opponents in range, so there’s nothing the player can do to get BOOST and catch up. It is, frankly, a lacking in fleshing out concept - a flawed system.
HOWEVER, as I said - this game feels good to win at. Though, all racing games with a decent foundation allow the player to feel a rush of pleasure once they cross the finish line, and there is no one ahead of them. The Gameplay is solid, but it is lacking. It seems, to be, to have the same issue as the dreaded MOBA, League of Legends, where the foundation is so strong that, even if slathered in shit and set on fire, as it is being bombarded by nuclear weapons and pelted with bullets, the game still feels good to play, sometimes.
I am hard pressed to make a decision, here, and I have to admit - it was better than I expected, though it is heavily inspired by another game. 2/3
Presentation
This game looked like a sack of garbage, left by the bin and unceremoniously covered in mold. I did not like the visuals. The box-art for this game was, and still is, horrible. I almost considered NOT playing it because of that, but I did. There is no Instruction Manual either - there’s a Voucher Code that expired 9 years ago. I was not given much to believe in.
And then I booted it up. The music was… Passable, but obnoxious. The visuals, oh, the visuals. Stylized, heavily, ugly goons, with bodies that were more reminiscent of thumbs with legs and arms, sat in tiny Karts and drove them about. It neither looks bad, nor good. It’s… Alright. If the aesthetic and style they had gone for was different, and the characters looked more reasonable (because they look like shit and I cannot be dissuaded), this game would have had a very good presentation.
Why?
Because there are a shitton of Cutscenes. Cutscenes with IMPRESSIVELY, SURPRISINGLY good voice acting. I don’t know how they did it, but this game’s story - yes, a racing game - or rather the racing game’s story ELEMENTS made its presentation absolutely incredible. I could hardly believe my eyes and ears. It was… really good.
I still hate how it looks, and the aesthetics are not pleasant, but damn me if this game did not come out of left field. It would have been amazing, had it not been dragged down by the aforementioned thumb people. 2/3
Story
I teased you with that in the Presentation, so I need to tell you. The story for ModNation Racers is… Very well done. Is it GOOD? I don’t think so. It went like some cheap-ish American movie about someone going and racing. The villains were established as being very villainous and unlikeable, right off the bat, while the characters who were meant to be likeable were, actually, relatively likeable.
The plot is very, very simple and incredibly bare-bones, lacking in many complexities that could make it interesting, but how is a person supposed to make a racing game’s plot interesting? Well, the folks who made this– Wait, who made this? United Front? But they’re not even on the box. What is going on here..?
Nevermind that, as I said, the plot might be very weak, but everything else is EXCEPTIONALLY strong. The characters? Each is immaculately defined and has a personality that is memorable, and it helps that they are very well voiced. The world building? It’s quite well established, and they use really subtle tools to tell the player about the setting.
And then there’s the humor. It’s actually pretty good. All in all, this story is quite good, although considering the plot is so weak, I can’t give this the best score possible. 2/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? No, ModNation Racers does not get the legendary point. It is more than obvious that Sony funded this game hard, so that they could have a competitor for Mario Kart - because that funny family game was taking over Japan, and the Western world. So, they called in a favour - the demonic essence of LocoRoco was sucked up and they attempted to utilize it to create this game. Fortunately for Humanity, they failed, and only got a decent game, not a thing to remember eternally, and get flashbacks to, because of its bulbous facsimile of reality. 0/1
Conclusion
6/10. This game is above average, actually. I’d recommend it to everyone who owns a PSP, if only to enjoy the story, which, as mentioned, is not that spectacular, but damn is it nice! The gameplay is also reasonable, and you might be able to play with a friend.
I tuck it under my belt, another achievement, needing a soggy napkin to clean it off, that I display… Not with any pride, though.