What a lonely road trip...
The basic gameplay is pretty fun. It contains every staple of the genre from boost pads to weapon pick ups to drifting and boosting. You have a boost meter that fills up as you drift, draft and perform spin jumps. It can also be used to activate a shield and trigger environment-based actions such as opening up shortcuts or deploying explosive canisters along the track. You can also execute a maneuver called a sideswipe, which lets you slam your kart into your opponent's at the expensive of a brief loss of control. The controls work well enough, but a floaty physics engine doesn't befit the necessary precision required by a game of this nature. It's far too easy to bounce all over the place like a pinball in a pinball machine.
There's also a leveling up system with the game's items where each time you pick up the same weapon you're holding, it increases in strength and effectiveness. If you manage to bring an item up to level three, you'll also be granted with an Amnesty Shield that protects you from weapons of that type. Weapons range from straightforward rockets that turn into a swarm of heat seeking missiles to freeze rays that when leveled up enough can transform you into a rampaging snow boulder. You can also pick up boosts that when maxed out let you warp down a stretch of track and put you right at the head of the pack.
ModNation Racers: Road Trip contains a single player campaign comprised of five tours, and a bonus tour that unlocks after you meet certain criteria. The game does a great job easing you into play with tutorials in the beginning tracks, but the later tracks begin to get harrowing. There are so many hazards strewn about the tracks that it begins to interfere with your enjoyment of the game, as no matter how skilled you may be, you're at the mercy of luck. Plus, the AI is inconsistent either being too passive the first two laps and unleashing a relentless assault on you during the final lap, or being completely aggressive out the gate and then doing nothing but screw themselves up for the rest of the race. There are also major problems that weren't addressed in play testing, such as flaws in track designs that get you stuck or going off track and never being reset. Of course, if you don't like the track, make your own.
This is where the strength of Road Trip lies. It has many track creation tools of its console counterpart, and it's even easier to begin the basic track layout since all you have to do is draw on the touch screen. You can dot the track with fences, place ramps, item picks up and hazards, raise and lower the track elevation, change the time of day and weather conditions, and it's all done via the touch screen. It's not entirely perfect, though, as it's too easy to place something down on the wrong spot if your camera's zoomed too far out. After creating a track, you can then publish it where other gamers can download and race it, and the real nice thing is you can do interact with PS3 user content as well.
It's not just tracks that you can create and edit. You can also do the same for the racer characters and karts. You can chose a number of colors to paint them with and adorn them with all sorts of facial features, stickers, etc., all with the touch screen. You can use two fingers to enlarge or shrink stickers and other features. The more you race in single player, the more features you unlock. You can also collect tokens on the road and deposit them in a mod dispensing machine to get the more rare parts. The only lacking facet to this customization is that you can't alter a kart's performance. Every kart and racer behaves the exact same way.
The crying shame of ModNation Racers: Road Trip is the complete lack of online racing. Sure, you can play multiplayer via ad-hoc, but you got to find players in your area with Vitas first. Yes, you can download and upload creations as well as gift your friends and strangers with Near, but the excitement is lost when you can't actually interact with these people. There has been talk of the developers possibly adding in a multiplayer patch, so there's always the possibility of online multiplayer in the future.
This isn't the highly polished Vita launch title that it should be. Of course, the visuals are much better than anything on the PSP with more impressive textures, special effects and character models, but everything is bogged down by a poor frame rate. Sometimes, the frame rate dips into the 10s and becomes almost unplayable. You also tend to get hit by objects you swore you didn't touch but did, because the contact wasn't rendered in the frame it should have. At least the track designs are creative, if a bit cluttered in areas.
The audio fares a little better. The spirit of the game is conveyed very well thanks to its light-hearted and cheery soundtrack. One such song even sings about being a "party everyday". None of the songs have any staying power, however, so at least you won't get worried about getting these tunes stuck in your head. The special effects are also standard fare. Rockets sound like rockets, and the the Lightning Storm has that sizzle lightning has right before it strikes. The characters have quirky little voices to them that make them cute and adorable.
ModNation Racers: Road Trip is a decent enough kart racing experience on the PS Vita, but its lack of online racing curtails the enjoyment of racing with people using your own creations, as well as theirs. Its single player content is also plagued with inconsistency from track design to AI, and the criteria you have to meet to unlock the bonus tour only serves as padding. If you simply enjoy creating, sharing and experiencing other people's work, Road Trip will be able to please you. If you want a complete package, then unfortunately this installment of ModNation Racers will surely disappoint.