ModNation Racers Preview

The demonstrator addresses his audience. "What kind of ears do you want to see?" he asks. "HOOOOORNS!" reply the crowd, roaring with enthusiasm. "Okay, now what kind of mouth? Shall we make him happy or sad?" "HAAAAAAPPPEEEEEEEE!" cry the masses. Over the next three minutes, the previously featureless doll takes on a strange new character. His skin turns blue, he sprouts an enormous white beard, and eventually he dons a Trojan helmet with a massive red plume. The avatar visibly reacts to each change as it's made: when he's forced to wear a dress, the poor little mite looks mortified.

gamescom 2009 is barely 20 minutes old, and already I'm feeling confused. Perhaps I'm missing a trick, but I thought that I was supposed to be seeing a racing game this morning. I must be in the wrong place, or perhaps I've suffered a brain hemorrhage: The show kicked off earlier when a bloke in Star Wars regalia flew a Thunderball-style jetpack down from the roof of the Cologne Convention Centre. I declined the optional earplugs, and as a result I'm pretty sure I felt something wet burst inside my skull.

But no, it subsequently turns out that this is a racing title after all - it's just one in which the player has a huge amount of freedom to create and edit the game elements. You can totally redesign your driver and the go-kart they drive, and you can build new levels from scratch in a matter of minutes. When you've finished your work, you can upload it to the PlayStation Network and share it with your friends. Yes folks, we're back in the Infinite Lands of User-Generated Content. Some smartarse somewhere is bound to label this game as "LittleBigRacers"; if nobody does, I'll eat my user-generated hat.

Naturally this open design makes Modnation Racers the ideal game for the first day of gamescom. As the demonstrator shows off the various editing tools, the assembled press seem more like excited schoolkids than hard-boiled hacks - although this probably says more about games journalists than the game itself. In any case, the actual tool kits look thoroughly impressive, boasting extensive ranges of brushes, textures and decals. Drivers begin life as vaguely sinister-looking white dolls, a toy-like figurine with a bulbous head, but in a very short space of time you can add all manner of props and tones - resulting in anything from a raven-haired rock chick to a bloke who's had all his skin peeled off. Less was shown of the vehicle editing, but finiscarthed examples included a wood-and-nails soapbox racer, and a vintage sports car riddled with bullet holes.

Having shown off the kart and character editors, United Front's demonstration shifted attention to the game's tracks. Initially we were shown a new stage that will ship with the game - the Middle Eastern-themed Market Run - and at this point the presentation really did turn into a school outing, as we were all divvied up into groups and then assigned to a supervisor. It was time for a spot of hands-on creativity. The scenario, we were told, was that our boss had just asked for a new track - and he needed it to be finished in 30 minutes. Could we get the work done in just half an hour?

Surprise surprise, it turned that we could. Modnation's level-sculpting tools work in a similar manner to Far Cry 2's superlative map builder. In essence, you start out by selecting a texture set that corresponds to the theme you've chosen (so far we've had a forest-y one, and a Middle Eastern desert one), then set about painting the landscape with your cursor, which can be scaled in size depending on how precise you want to be. Terrain can be raised or lowered in real-time, and you can overlay additional textures like dirt and grass. You can also place down individual scenery items, or lay down clumps of grouped items like trees. Most of the time you're working from a bird's eye view of your work, but the track itself is laid-out from a player's perspective: at the touch of a button you'll find yourself behind the wheel of your kart, and as you drive about you'll leave a trail of tarmac behind you. If you move in reverse you'll undo your work, but since the game also gives you an overhead view of the map, it's an utter cinch to set the track as you like. As you drive the editor will automatically suggest a route to complete the circuit, and if you get bored you can just ask the game to finish the path for you.

From what I've seen and tried for myself, these tools seem to be elegantly well thought-out. They're simple and fun to use, but they also seem deep enough to offer true creative flexibility. For obvious reasons United Front kept things rather straightforward for the purposes of our gamescom assignment, but they did also show off some of the more advanced track toys - such as crushing walls that can be set to operate on a timer, or via invisible triggers; if you're the kind of racer who loves hidden routes and shortcuts, you'll be able to litter your maps with secrets. Best of all, the game allows you to test-drive your new creation at any time. If you just want to see how well a certain area works you drop in and take a look, but you can also try out a full race against the AI without having to exit back to the main menu.

The core game itself owes much to Mario Kart, in the sense that it seems as focused on messing around with your rivals as it is with actual racing. Weapons are collected via pick-ups dotted around the track, and if players so choose they can gather multiple power-ups to enable a stronger attack. Other than this strategic conceit, the gameplay seems to be very much sticking to the classic ingredients of the genre. This is no bad thing of course, and crucially the karts themselves seem to be sharp and responsive in their handling. It's obvious why United Front chose a creative focus for their Cologne presentation: the user community will be the backbone of Modnation Racers, and thus it's important to show off these tools at an early stage. UGC is ultimately worthless if the game itself is a dog, but so far it looks to be delivering in all the important areas. Hopefully it won't be too long before we can learn a bit more about what this game can do.

Modnation Racers will be out on PS3 in 2010.