E3: ModNation Racers is LBP for karting

By Tom Bramwell Published 2 June, 2009

UGC-heavy "Play Create Share" in 2010.

Sony's US boss Jack Tretton made the case that LittleBigPlanet was the first in a new Play Create Share "genre" during his E3 conference speech, announcing another UGC-heavy game called ModNation Racers for release in 2010.

Developer United Front Games demonstrated that not only is MNR a kart racer with standard props like drifting, power-ups and online multiplayer, but it's also an LBP-inspired modding and sharing system built around a versatile track editor.

Using Track Studio in-game, one of the developers was able to lay down tarmac by actually driving around a big empty field, connecting start to finish by driving back through the start/finish line.

With the right stick to help with elevation, he took the track up and around in a loop back across itself, and the game put a bridge in place to avoid problems. With a few other easy-to-use tools, he sprinkled mountains, dirt roads, trees, power-ups and even sheep around his creation, which looked pretty professional by the end of the five-minute demo.

Elsewhere he dropped in lakes and played with the sun, moving it around to change shadows and raising and lowering it to change the lighting conditions from midday to dusk and everything in-between. It was all reflected in real time.

With the track set-up, the devs jumped into the world and started racing around instantly, and the game spawned AI racers to help test it out. Actual mechanics were slick - very fast, with nimble drifts - and we're told to expect a physical experience to match, with noticeable surface changes.

Power-ups, meanwhile, will include some familiar and some not - with a nice multi-rocket launcher coming into play at one stage.

As with LBP, everything can be uploaded, downloaded and remixed at your leisure through a range of seemingly intuitive on-screen menus, and that includes your racer and car. Your avatar isn't quite a Sackboy - he's more of a mannequin boy - but he gets a cutesy basic car and the skins for both he and it suggest plenty of depth.

And if you disagree with anyone's choices, there will be the usual arrangement of rating features for the community - and presumably the usual range of party-pooping censors to rub out your superb homage to Cannonball Run.

Watch out for more from ModNation Racers later in the week, hopefully. There was no word on Stephen Fry this time - perhaps we can have Murray Walker?

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (15) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Cannibal #1 3 years ago

    I was most impressed by this more than anything else at the Sony conference. Hope we see FPS ones and a whole bunch of other takes on this too.

  • Rash' #2 3 years ago

    This looked like fun. Building on from where the brilliant LBP left off. Let's see if the devs can build on successfully.
    Edited by 1 at 02/06/09 @ 21:28

  • asphaltcowboy #3 3 years ago

    The demo was VERY good. Would rather have an XBLA Trackmania though!

  • StooMonster #4 3 years ago

    LittleBigPlanet-Kart

  • cheekyjay #5 3 years ago

    Innovative, slick, intuitive - this ticked a lot of boxes for me - I hope it sees a better commercial success than LBP did (assuming it turns out to be a good game of course!)

  • betahoven #6 3 years ago

    Post deleted at 09:36:16 17-12-2011

  • HermitArcader #7 3 years ago

    Post deleted at 09:17:39 22-12-2011

  • Deucalion #8 3 years ago

    As a tech-demo I thought it looked nice. As a game however, I think I'll pass. I don't think it comes even close to what LBP is capable of. It looked like Mario Cart on PS3, except you can build your own tracks (and carts?). When reading the title I was hoping they were going to show that you could build/mod life-like looking racers.

    And don't get me started on that GT5 trailer.

  • chris_ace #9 3 years ago

    Post deleted at 11:55:13 13-12-2011

  • Deucalion #10 3 years ago

    @chris_ace: It looked great, but I'm disappointed they didn't show any crash-damage at all. I can't believe they are going down that route again....

  • Widge #11 3 years ago

    ?

    It had crash damage

  • AusFreelancer #12 3 years ago

    @ Vertical Stand

    I hear you! I've been yelling out for a Speed Freaks sequel ever since it would freeze randomly on loading screens via emulation on PStwo & PS3. Can't complain though this is looking ACE! I hope this is both a download & blu-ray, like Warhawk.

  • Vistrix #13 3 years ago

    The game looked fun. I hope the tools are as flexible as LBP though - or even more (e.g. custom textures perhaps?)

  • jmg123 #14 3 years ago

    I think they could do with combining this with trackmania a bit more, Actually sod that, lets have the multiple car modes from trackmania, the insane jumps, track pieces from trackmania, the smooth editing/sharing/customisation (tracks and cars) from this/LBP and the weapons from mariokart. Now that would be a game I couldn't put down

  • RedSparrows #15 3 years ago

    The demo was VERY good. Would rather have an XBLA Trackmania though!

    Joy Ride (free for Gold members) looks kinda like that. Probably not as feature heavy as this though, obvs.