Modnation Racers

And this isn't even half the stuff you can make.

In a brief pitch, the equation tends to be Mario Kart + LittleBigPlanet, a racing game that takes the realistic yet fun driving system and doubling it up with the ability to create tracks, Mods (The Drivers) and Karts, each and every one of those goes more in depth than Track Mania even, and adds so much to the driving aspect to hold up on its own.

It was released on May 21, 2010 in Europe and May 25th in the United States.

The game itself follows this sort of Urban Vinyl style of figurines which the developers have seen and by which they were inspired. They explain it as the sort of thing that proved itself a blank canvas for artistic potential.

This game was announced at E3 2009.

Tropes used in Modnation Racers include:

• Aww Look, They Really Do Like Each Other: This Playstation Blog post reveals that Biff and Gary carpool to and from work.
• Butt Monkey: Gary Raisins Reasons.
• Car Fu: In addition to the powerups, you can sideswipe other cars, provided your boost bar isn't empty.
• Comedic Sociopathy: Most Mods out there, including the commentators, watch the MRC to marvel at just how violent the races can get.
• Cool Car: Quite a few kart body types, from various "normal" cars to cardboard boxes, trains, and even an airplane, colored and decorated however you want.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Uncle Richard.
• Cynical Mentor: The Crew Chief.
• Defeat Means Playable: Several of the elite racers in career mode.
• Difficulty Spike: Flaming Jumps. Not only is the track itself much less forgiving than previous ones, with fewer drifting opportunities and plenty of ways to fall off the track completely, it's also the first track in career mode where you must finish in first place to advance instead of just the top three.
  • Not to mention it's one of the only two tracks available to play in the PSP demo, which from this troper's experience, was much harder to handle.
    • The elite driver, Hale, only makes matters worse. If he ever gets any kind of lead over you, expect it to grow exponentially if you can't keep up or use shortcuts.
• Drives Like Crazy: Pretty much everyone.
• Exploding Barrels
• Fantastic Racism Towards the final boss in one cutscene, who is Italian:

Tag: (Offers to hug cheif after he starts to cry about bad memories)
Chief: This is a RACETRACK! What are you doing?! Never hug me. Hugging's for Girl scouts, Hippies, and ITALIANS!

• Gotta Catch Em All: The tokens, used to buy accessories for the various editor modes.
• Heroic Mime: Tag.
  • Within reason, it is to work around the fact that Tag could just as well be anything, with any voice, including no voice at all.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: Believe it or not, Biff and Gary are, in the Japanese version of the game, voiced by Solid Snake and Raiden respectively.
• I'll Never Tell You What I'm Telling You: Chief's confession to Tag that it was Espresso who cause his trauma inducing crash 25 years ago.
• Jerkass: Biff Tradwell, especially to Gary, who appears to have gotten used to it.

Biff: Hey Gary, if two's company and three's a crowd, what's one?
Gary: The number of people at my birthday party?
Biff: Booyah!

• Kill It with Fire: The Vita version adds fire to the power ups you can aquire, and what happens when you reach Level 3? You fire a gigantic Phoenix of course.
• Level Editor: It takes the LittleBigPlanet approach by making it the big selling point of the game, but there is also a very, very indepth Mod and Kart Studio in comparison to similar features in other games.
• Loads and Loads of Loading: A fairly common gripe. 45 second loads, anyone?
• Macross Missile Massacre: The level 3 missile powerup does this.
• Names to Run Away From Really Fast: The Hydra, the level three variant of the rocket power-up, a Macross Missile Massacre that will relentlessly lock on to every driver in front of its user, and it will have enough missiles for each and every single one of them.
• Nitro Boost
• Nintendo Hard: Some of the bonus missions fall under this.
• Preorder Bonus: In addition to the first shipment including a code for a Sackboy Mod and Kart, depending on where the preorder was made. There were codes for Kratos, Nathan Drake or Ratchet and Clank. Some recieved a code for "Air Raid" DLC.
• Red Herring: Look at the picture at the top of the screen. See that guy in white standing in the foreground by the company logo? You think he's the final boss? Nope. He's not even an elite character. Who's the final boss? You see that guy in the background, flying in the air behind Tag? That's him.
• Rubber Band AI: While not as blatant as some racing games (at least to start with), it's definitely present.
  • May be a case of Artificial Brilliance, as defended by the developers in this Podcast
• Rule of Fun: Comes up time and time again. For example, the power-ups are indeed implemented for this rule. In particular, thankfully, to avoid the blue shell effect, you are able to use boost gained from certain activities to generate a temporary shield. A welcome addition.
  • Though it doesn't completely remove Fake Difficulty generated by the power-ups, mostly the level 3 ones, where the Sonic Rift tends to be ambiguous about when it hits a racer, the Bolt Storm randomly delays without any warning, and an entire Hydra barrage might prove too much for a shield to block entirely. When these come rapidly one after another, particularly in online races, there will be times where you simply can't avoid taking a hit.
• Shout-Out: Not really, but when you see Elite Racers with names like Scout, Shadow and Diablo, it sort of makes you think if it had a bit of intention.
  • In one of the final cutscenes from the career mode, the Big Bad gets arrested. A cop then explains that his fingerprints were found on a bomb. The cop is a redhead who wears black sunglasses, wears a tuxedo and ends his bit with an Incredibly Lame Pun. Does this remind you of someone else?
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Determining the gender of a mod is solely up to the clothes and accessories applied to it.
  • Well, that, and the voice.
• That Is Wrong On So Many Levels: Biff Tradwell's response to Tag picking his nose waiting at the starting line in Rumble Jungle. Jez looks on in a similar disgust.
• Unlockable Content: Most of the parts for the create modes.
• Virtual Paper Doll: Color and add accessories to your Mod to make them look like they're wearing almost anything, though you can't change the basic body shape. It helps that a blank Mod looks like a vinyl figurine.
  • You can also make your mod look more like a Virtual Metal, Cloth, or Rubber Doll.