ModNation Racers: Road Trip

Creating your own track has never been easier or faster. Use your index finger on the front touch screen to draw the track. Then add some details and an impressive mountain range using the back touchpad and you are set to race. [March 2012, p.53]

The sheer amount of content is the primary eye catcher here, immediately followed by the smooth controls. It's a shame the touch features don't always work as well as was promised and the lack of online multiplayer is a mystery even Sherlock Holmes won't be able to solve.

It's still fun, but there are big handfulls of frustration thrown in too. [May 2012, p.79]

Plays great, looks great, and there's enough in here to keep you entertained 'til next year but the lack of online multiplayer is a real blow. [March 2012, p62]

None of these small gripes would kill anyone's enjoyment of the game, but given the lack of multiplayer, and the weak single-player, ModNation Racers: Road Trip is a huge missed opportunity for the casual fan, but the mod-tools are strong enough to appeal to the already converted fan of the franchise.

Enjoyable, solid gameplay, smooth controls and lots of content and customization options. Too bad for it's problems with touch features and the lack of multiplayer online.

A rushed packing job to hit the road and enjoy the adventurous escape of Vita's launch. It's got a lot to offer and has a wealth of good times in store, but with a little more time spent on getting things together this could've been the trip of a lifetime.

Takes a great kart racing series, and adds a much easier to use creating system. Touch screen controls make the track studio much more intuitive and easier to use. Not adding in head-to-head online racing is inexcusable in this day and age. While it doesn't totally ruin the experience, it does take away from the overall series.

The portable incarnation of Modnation Racers beats its stationary predecessor.

Great creativity options but poor racing experience for a game which doesn't evolve from the last ModNation launched on PSP. Still a good game, but with a big mistake: it lacks online modes.

This isn't the most charismatic racing series around, perhaps, but Road Trip is a surprisingly enjoyable instalment nonetheless. It's colourful, cheerful and a decent showcase for Sony's brand new hardware.

The menus bury the coolest stuff, the touch controls are peculiarly particular, and even though the Vita is a connected device, I feel alone when I play this. If you're looking for a bright and colorful kart racer with good mechanics, ModNation Racers: Road Trip fits the bill, but it doesn't excel anywhere else.

ModNation Racers remains a bastion for creativity, and I can only hope its focus on user-made content influences other kart racers and the racing genre as a whole. Road Trip's new touchscreen controls further refine content creation, but they aren't a game changer. Unfortunately, the lack of online multiplayer is.

With so much emphasis on sharing, the fact that there's only local multiplayer is frankly puzzling. More time should have been spent on what matters instead of fun gimmicks to promote hardware functionality.

Does not stand out in any way and disappoints with its lack of internet multiplayer. [March 2012, p.77]

The single-player career mode and customization options make this a fun diversion, but it's not as addictive or polished as Mario Kart, it lacks key features, and it fails to take full advantage of the Vita's hardware. This is a bargain-bin purchase for people who love kart racing, not a must-own title for gamers of all stripes.

ModNation Racers is nothing to write home about, and is best compared to standing still in traffic during rush hour. You'll stand still, pull up slightly, hit the brakes, and stand still again. Not even beautiful scenery will rectify this road trip.

More of a "create your content" rather than a "create your content and play" game. Granted, it's entertaining, but it is obvious that ModNation for Vita is a rushed product.

Poor driving mechanics and flawed level design makes this title a bad choice for those who are interested in good kart games. But the high amount of customization options makes it an excellent choice for creative people.

Sadly, ModNation's creative side trumps the racing. [Apr 2012, p.57]

ModNation Racers: Road Trip is a game that could have been much more.

But while it's easy to create races, playing them is another matter thanks to ruthless power ups that make racing a joyless messy chaos. Overall the experience is a mixed bag of good and evil. If you're creative juices flow freely at the thought of making beardy Gandalf drivers and courses that are Mordor-meets-Nürburgring, then lifespan is only limited by your imagination.

It's far from a disaster, but it's not really the challenger to Mario Kart 7 that we were hoping for.

It's a little cramped – occasionally you'll swipe past the option you wanted and need to make a series of jerking thumb moves to get back on track – but offers a breezy kind of customisation both for those with inspiration and plans they want to execute and those without, who just want to browse and tinker.

If you can look beyond the technical issues you'll get a tolerable funracer with an interesting editor.

If you already own a ModNation Racers game you can skip this, due to the lack of online racers. However, if you're new to the series you'll have a great cart-racing time, as long as you're ok with only playing with people in your vicinity.

ModNation Racers: Road Trip gets off to an exciting start but sputters and lurches across the finish line.

This is a typical launch title in many ways - by no means as good as it could have been, but a solid effort no doubt developed under the strictest of time restraints.

Vita's black sheep. It's not awful by any stretch of the imagination, but it's difficult to recommend. [Issue#215, p.77]

ModNation Racers: Road Trip features impressive creation tools integrated with a moderately enjoyable game. But with no online multiplayer and a single-player mode that becomes quickly frustrating, you must decide if the creative aspects are enough to keep you satisfied.

Despite the well-executed customization suite and some entertaining gameplay, it feels like too many good ideas were buried under mountains and mountains of bullshit you never asked for and you'll never use.

It´s not a really an aggravating game, but one that could have used six months of extra development time, to make it an organic and natural extension to its PS3-counterpart. As it stands, Sony is leaving the ModNation Racers community hanging in the air – not a big surprise after the announcement of LittleBigPlanet Karting, though.

ModNation Racers on the Vita is a boring, unfair, and wholly unnecessary release that manages to be worse than its previous handheld outing despite the Vita's technical superiority over the PSP.