Difficulty:

Very Hard

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Overrated"

There are several things that hold the psp port of ModNation Racers back from being just a descent kart racer at best. First, lets talk about the glitches. There are glitches in several track that can and will hold a player back from winning races. For example, getting stuck inside of wall or along side railings. Ok, then there's the issue with the uneven recovery of the AI controlled opponents and the player. Why have weapons or power ups on this game if they give you no real edge? You shoot an oppenent with a missile in point black range and they'll still somehow be right behind you in the race...yet if the player controlled racer gets hit, they're almost guarenteed to fall back to last place! Either the intial hit will be followed by 2 or 3 more hits from other AI controlled racers and/or the player's kart experiences the expected slow down that the other racers never do. This issue causes almost all the races to be neck and neck and really close. That doesn't sound like too much of a bad thing, does it? Well throw that on top of the previously mention glitch issue and the extremely unforgiving tracks closer to the end of Career mode. The unbearable AI and ridiculous track layouts take away from ModNation's enjoyabilty. I'm not going to get into how incrediably ANNOYING the pit crew coach is...

There is also a create mode where players can create their own racer, kart, and track. Everything is pretty cool up until when it comes to creating your own track. More than likely, its not going to be until the player completes Career Mode that they're going to have any idea about what it is half of the stuff in create a track does. Personally, I found the create functionality of the game to be way too indepth and require too much time. I can't comment on the co-op or online functionality of the game since I never bothered trying it out

My Breakdown:

What's Good:

- Being able customize your racer and cars
- Doing spinning tricks over large cliffs
- Cut scenes in Career Mode can be amusing

What's Not-So-Good:

- Customization is long winded and lacks simplicity

What's Bad:

- Performance hindering track glitches
- Uneven kart recovery once hit by a weapon
- Insanly difficult tracks
- Ridculous A.I.
- Constantly having the pit crew coach screaming wrong advise and for the player to "boost" every 5 minutes!

In all, ModNation requires way too much time and effort than I'm willing to put into a kart racer. But hey, if you have the patience...go for it.