ModNation Racers customization preview

Images courtesy of Sony Computer Entertainment America

When your game title features a word like 'Modnation', you are pretty much committed to delivering a product that should have a high degree of customization. Examiner met up with United Front Games producer Dan Sochan today to check out Sony's Modnation Racers to see just how deeply gamers are able to tailor their kart racing experience.

Starting in an offline version of the game's hub area, we saw several AI racers busily traversing nearby terrain. Dan proceeded to drive his racer to the various trophy and reward areas populated by avatars of other racers who have achieved notoriety. United Front looks to cater to both its soon-to-be devoted fanbase and casual players as there are opportunities for gamers from both demographics to get recognized. Aided by developer feedback and community voting, anyone can get noticed for their original and inventive mod designs or through performing well on the courses.

Customization revolves around three aspects: avatar, karts, and tracks. When checking out the character creation, we asked Dan if his team got any constructive feedback from Media Molecule. Dan said the LittleBigPlanet developers were more than supportive and excited about the level of depth ModNation presented. It should be noted that this game does not allow users to upload images or use the EyeToy. This is not really an issue as any design-driven gamer can take advantage of ModNation's tools to create something original. This feature will be especially appealing to fans of urban vinyl designer toys, which was a huge influence on ModNation.

Much like how the music industry has artists who focus on remixing other artists' work, ModNation looks to pull in gamers who might be interested in 'remixing' other users' avatars. Without affecting the creator's original design, another user can produce a reinterpretation of that avatar. United Front looks to reward both the creator and the remixer though a game-wide experience point system.

While the kart modding does not appear to have the same level of depth, there are certainly enough options to make one's vehicle unique. Obvious parts include chassis, engines, spoilers and tires. A user can also customize the kart's lift on both the front and back ends.

In keeping things simple, these variables do not affect a kart's performance on the track. Kart performance settings are limited to top speed versus acceleration and gripping versus drifting. In order to encourage racers to improve their performance, players can view their opponents' settings, which is obviously helpful in figuring out how to beat them in the next race. There is also the option of tweaking one's kart before any race should that help in taking on a track's specific challenges.

ModNation's track creator was easily the game's most impressive feature. United Front Games did not rely on the traditional course design tools where the user would merely paste 'right-turn', left-turn', 'straightaway' sections one at a time. Instead, players control a road-laying vehicle that does away with the segmented format in favor of an impressively organic process.  Dan was not done yet, as he then went on to show the game's auto-populate feature, which took care of creating the track's environments and backgrounds. The user is then able to pick and choose any of the items created from the auto-populate and tweak them further. Focusing on a single tree, Dan showed how the user can easily remove, rotate and grow this one object. As a finishing touch, he went on to select a paint brush tool, which created a tunnel in less than 5 seconds.

In the 50 minutes spent at this demo session, we did not even come around to having an actual race. Fortunately, we walked away with a preview disc so stay tuned for hands-on impressions on the game's actual racing as well as a Q&A with Dan.

ModNation Racers is scheduled for a Spring 2010 release on the PlayStation 3 and the PlayStation Portable.