[ModNation Week] Part 2: Create
If you think all there is to the more artistic side of ModNation Racers is a carbon copy of LittleBigPlanet's community tools, think again. This here's some next-level shiz, and we're all too happy to tell you why.
Published: May 12, 2010
When we last left you, we'd covered most of the basics of ModNation Racers' core racing gameplay, though we glossed over a few more of the advanced bits that we'll tackle most of it today (and of course we have to save something for the review). If racing is the absolute heart of what United Front Games has built, then the creation aspect is the rest of the body -- at times literally.
The borrowing of the Play, Create, Share mantra from Sony's DIY platforming antics wasn't something done lightly; nearly everything that went into making LittleBigPlanet a ridiculously flexible framework for budding level and fashion designers to cut their teeth has been carried over here. But it's been tweaked and refined too, making for easier customization of the basic building blocks and expanding to help take someone else's work (if they allow it) and "remix" it into something new. This iterative process may well be the way in which Play, Create, Share effectively grows into the next generational leap -- right in time for Media Molecule to up the ante all over again.
Broken down in to three distinct areas of customization, the Creation Station is your first stop on the path to developing your own unique driver and his ride, not to mention the locales both will be zipping around in. As such, it's probably best to take things one step at a time. Though you're never locked out of any creation (you can ride right up to the Creation Station or access it from the pause menu after winning the MRC qualifier), the Career Mode basically asks you to delve into each area a bit at a time, so we'll follow that path.
[Mods]
The heart and soul (not to mention limbs) of your in-game persona starts here. Tag's given a default form, but you're hardly forced to stick with it for long. You can opt to strip him down to his urban vinyl skin or randomize all the various bits and pieces of him however you see fit -- and the randomization will include parts you haven't yet unlocked with races so there's no absolute requirement that you finish the Career Mode, though if you want to use those pieces without stumbling upon them by chance, you'll have to put in the hard work.
Like all of ModNation Racers' menus, main entries are distributed around a radial menu. You can start from scratch, import Mods you've download or edit your current model. Regardless of which option you choose, you'll eventually delve into the various parts of your Mod and start tweaking. Any new items you've unlocked since your last visit to the Creation Station are marked with an exclamation point, and hovering over an item on the list will reveal the name if you're curious.
-Skins-
Essentially a giant sticker that wraps around the Mod to give them a full-body texture, skins are something of a base plate to work from. Sure, they might clash a little with other bits and bobs once you've started working on the face, but they're also a source of an impressive amount of variety, and like nearly every single thing you can apply, scale, rotate and move around on a Mod, the colors can be tweaked to your liking -- often with multiple colors for the base and various highlights. Again, like just many of the things that can be slapped onto your custom creations, the material properties can be changed via sliders to make them more like Metal, Rubber or Cloth. The various color options are toggled between with the L2/R2 triggers.
The borrowing of the Play, Create, Share mantra from Sony's DIY platforming antics wasn't something done lightly; nearly everything that went into making LittleBigPlanet a ridiculously flexible framework for budding level and fashion designers to cut their teeth has been carried over here. But it's been tweaked and refined too, making for easier customization of the basic building blocks and expanding to help take someone else's work (if they allow it) and "remix" it into something new. This iterative process may well be the way in which Play, Create, Share effectively grows into the next generational leap -- right in time for Media Molecule to up the ante all over again.
Broken down in to three distinct areas of customization, the Creation Station is your first stop on the path to developing your own unique driver and his ride, not to mention the locales both will be zipping around in. As such, it's probably best to take things one step at a time. Though you're never locked out of any creation (you can ride right up to the Creation Station or access it from the pause menu after winning the MRC qualifier), the Career Mode basically asks you to delve into each area a bit at a time, so we'll follow that path.
[Mods]
The heart and soul (not to mention limbs) of your in-game persona starts here. Tag's given a default form, but you're hardly forced to stick with it for long. You can opt to strip him down to his urban vinyl skin or randomize all the various bits and pieces of him however you see fit -- and the randomization will include parts you haven't yet unlocked with races so there's no absolute requirement that you finish the Career Mode, though if you want to use those pieces without stumbling upon them by chance, you'll have to put in the hard work.
Like all of ModNation Racers' menus, main entries are distributed around a radial menu. You can start from scratch, import Mods you've download or edit your current model. Regardless of which option you choose, you'll eventually delve into the various parts of your Mod and start tweaking. Any new items you've unlocked since your last visit to the Creation Station are marked with an exclamation point, and hovering over an item on the list will reveal the name if you're curious.
-Skins-
Essentially a giant sticker that wraps around the Mod to give them a full-body texture, skins are something of a base plate to work from. Sure, they might clash a little with other bits and bobs once you've started working on the face, but they're also a source of an impressive amount of variety, and like nearly every single thing you can apply, scale, rotate and move around on a Mod, the colors can be tweaked to your liking -- often with multiple colors for the base and various highlights. Again, like just many of the things that can be slapped onto your custom creations, the material properties can be changed via sliders to make them more like Metal, Rubber or Cloth. The various color options are toggled between with the L2/R2 triggers.
