LittleBigPlanet Karting

LittleBigPlanet Karting includes a toolset which players can use to build visually and mechanically imaginative creations; which I suppose is the most important thing to nail when creating a LittleBigPlanet game. United Front has done that swimmingly.

Worth checking out, especially if you're interested not only in racing with your kid on split screen, but also in tackling the powerful but not very friendly editor. [1/2013, p.65]

Sony offers us a more casual karting experience along with all the tools you need and more for the creation of levels. LittleBigPlanet Karting is good fun for the youngest and inexperienced, but hardcore gamers will probably give this a pass due to its lack of challenge.

A good game that never finds its place: Sonic All-Stars Racing Transformed is much better, and ModNation Racers offers the same build/share/play philosophy.

Fans of LittleBigPlanet will surely enjoy LittleBigPlanet Karting, as it manages to take the essence of Media Molecule's platforming joy and translate that into a solid and enjoyable kart racer, with all the charm you would expect. It's a shame the developers felt that they needed to take every aspect of LittleBigPlanet and use that as a base to create this game, as it has hurt it in some regards and has made the online multiplayer an awkward mode to participate in.

LittleBigPlanet Karting is a decent racer with plenty of potential, but ModNation Racers was way better in terms of gameplay.

LittleBigPlanet Karting is Sony's equivalent to Mario Kart's Wii-Version. Not bad by any means, but hamstrung by unbalanced extras and an all to conservative driving-model. With some friends, this is still a lot of fun, but special this one ain't.

With the level of creations online now you can see the frustration caused by the editor. Tracks are not nearly as inspired as those found in ModNation. It just seems like LBP Karting took more shortcuts in its design than the two games that make up its core.

No sense of speed, basic track design and badly designed power-ups: LBP Karting is a clumsy experiment that fails to deliver CrashTeamRacing-style entertainment.

LittleBigPlanet Karting offers great fun for the creative and those who love karting games. It can at times feel a little empty, the characters a little flat, but the driving experience is good, albeit a bit chaotic. As always, the online community has great potential and will decide the success of the title.

This is not a LBP 3 at all, seems more like a 2.5 version with racing Sackboys.

LittleBigPlanet Karting is an enjoyable game, but it's far from a great one, and it doesn't feel like it's had the love and attention previous games in the series have clearly benefitted from. Play it, mess around with its tools, and have fun, but LittleBigPlanet Karting's lack of personality will result in no long-lasting impression.

If you can look past the fact that it's essentially ModNation Racers with a Sackboy-colored coat of paint, LittleBigPlanet Karting is an enjoyable enough vehicular romp. Still, it's hard to shake the sense that United Front has already made this game once-and they did it better the first time.

Thankfully, the core racing is exciting, and the lengthy story mode offers a variety of well-designed courses to compete in, so even if the community never takes off, there's still plenty of entertainment to be had.

Quotation forthcoming.

If you're a big LBP fan then it might be worth it, but if you've played ModNation Racers, I don't think the slight makeover is enough to warrant a full price tag.

However, while LittleBigPlanet Karting's polish makes it a solid racer, it is nonetheless flawed and inessential. Despite heavy handling, few corners require anything close to deceleration let alone braking to negotiate, and it's the weapons rather than crashes that significantly alter a final placing anyway. That makes it perfect as a party game as experienced players aren't hugely advantaged, but it also sucks the drama from even the closest finishes, and those seeking a balanced, competitive racer should look elsewhere.

The creation experience is as simple or as deep as you make it, but strip away the LBP veneer and you have a rather basic karting game.

As a clever mix of the universe of LittleBigPlanet and the interesting gameplay of Modnation Racers, LittleBigPlanet Karting had pretty good bases to offer amazing races we can usually find in the Mario Kart IP. However, the lack of dynamism, especially in solo, makes the game a little bit less attractive. Hopefully, the multiplayer mode, with its community-based gameplay, offers enough challenges to spend a great time with friends, but not enough innovations to be one of a kind.

It's not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination, and can even manage to be quite fun in the right environment, but it's altogether a fairly meaningless release that seems to exist just to ensure Sony has something out in time for the holiday season that isn't All-Stars.

Not as fun as LittleBigPlanet's platform offerings, but the track editor impresses. [Jan 2013, p.71]

LittleBigPlanet Karting makes no bones about the fact that it's a kart racer with familiar series hooks thrown into the mix. The racing itself is fine, but as ever, you come to LittleBigPlanet to revel in the madness of its community creations – and this is a lure that still works a treat here.

LittleBigPlanet Karting succeeds in applying Media Molecule's 'create and share' formula to the racing genre, offering almost the same level of creative freedom as the core platform series. As a racing game in its own right, it struggles to compete with the genre's leaders such as ModNation Racers and Mario Kart, but at least manages to impress on the innovation front.

The customisation and creation tools are impressively powerful, but the disappointingly dull racer that's been built around them doesn't provide much inspiration.

There are glimpses of a game worth loving tucked away in the folds of LittleBigPlanet Karting's chunky lop-sided weave, but it too often goes out of its way to bury those simple joys under fussy distractions and needless obstructions.

The right ingredients, a known recipe, but the cooked result doesn't work. It's slow paced, and one must rely on the community remaking the Mario Kart circuits to start enjoying himself... but still not that much.

LittleBigPlanet Karting's shortcomings undermine its ability to provide a compelling racing experience. With unbalanced weapons, ruthless AI, and clunky menus, it leaves you pondering what the game actually has to offer – aside from the in-depth creation mode and dulcet tones of narrator Stephen Fry, of course.