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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.