ModNation Racers is the PSP's response to Mario Kart for the DS
Yeah - Despite the fact that ModNation Racers is a fun racing game, it offers the same sort of arcade-like freedom. It works a lot similarly to Mario Kart. It shares several qualities but if you compare them both, I'm pretty sure that the more experienced gamers would try out ModNation Racers instead. It features many familiar faces from other PlayStation games (or PSP games to be more precise). They all look cartoony and I'm sure anyone can get a few smirks out of this wonder, especially when Kratos is in it!
The graphical aspects of it is good. It's not something over-the-top and realistic. It's ideally targetted towards a younger audience and it successfully does this. The graphics look smooth and all the character models are clearly meant to look toy-like so bearing that in mind, it looks fabulous on the colorful PSP display. Once again, the cartoony style is highly appealing and would be one of the reasons why you'd be coming back for more.
The gameplay is similar to that of any average racing game. It contains those few twists and extra power-up stuff scattered across the many tracks which makes it identical to Mario Kart. It does a good job of maintaining a rapid pace by offering plenty of extras along the laps you require to complete.
There are extra modes to unlock and new vehicles/characters. You can also customise pretty much any aspect of your ride (i.e. pimp your ride out) and also your own character. There are some pre-made characters (like Kratos as I referred to previously) who also have their own dedicated vehicles based upon the type of genre these characters come from so it can be pretty cool to enter races in those rides instead.
Fortunately, there is a bit of a story thrown in rather than a random racing game. It compensates for the few flaws (visual quirks and occassional lag). The AI is pretty impressive. At first, I expected the game to be somewhat easy due to its cartoony style but the opponents you race against are quite tough and therefore the artificial intelligence deserves a bit of variety so not all races are too punishing. But the challenging aspects of the game might be considered a good thing amongst the more hard-core racing gamers.
To conclude, ModNation Racers is nothing short of spectacular. You're gonna have a lot of fun if you're into comical kart racing ventures like Mario Kart. ModNation Racers is an instant classic and truly deserves to be respected as a gem amongst the hungry PSP owners who wish for more games similar to the DS. It's a great game - go get it as soon as possible.