LittleBigPlanet Karting Review

When LittleBigPlanet came out in 2008, I couldn’t wait to see the types of spin-off franchises created from the endless creativity the community and Media Molecule could generate. In 2010, a spin-off idea from LittleBigPlanet came in the form of ModNation Racers, a game I ran out to buy day one. Much to my disappointment, long load times ruined my experience, and nothing new came out of the play, create, and share dynamic besides the much-anticipated sequel to LBP. Almost two years have passed since then, and we now have a game that looks like it could be a great spin-off on the surface, but it’s not all blue skies for this racer.

Gameplay

LittleBigPlanet Karting borrows a bit of gameplay from LittleBigPlanet and ModNation Racers and mashes them together to create one massive racing game. That’s the real hook of playing LittleBigPlanet Karting, after all, there are 71 levels to play in story mode, which go by fairly quickly, but by comparison, a game like Mario Kart doesn’t have nearly that many. The problem with 71 levels is that many don’t feel well fleshed out. There aren’t a lot of extras on the tracks. It’s just driving with some crazy turns and random shortcuts, but nothing else. Like most kart racing games, you have standard weapons and drift to get around the track faster. That’s all good for me, but there needs to be more excitement while retaining the core mechanics.

Weapons

Did I say retaining? Well, LBPK drops the boost/shield meter and introduces a new system where you use drifting to boost, which is perfect, but then choose whether to defend or attack with your equipped weapon. One of the great things about MNR was that you could protect yourself against multiple attacks, which is completely gone with this game.

Use a weapon to take down that opponent and leave yourself vulnerable to an attack. Use it as a shield, and you will still open yourself up for an attack the next second. This is a massive problem in LBPK and throws strategy out the window. It’s a crap shoot and while a lot of kart racers are, this kind of thing is usually within the user’s control. If UFG allowed players to store one weapon like Mario Kart or kept the system from MNR, they wouldn’t have had this problem, and the game would be much less frustrating. Most people who play this game are casual players, and no one wants to sit there and get smacked by weapons one after the other.

Battle Mode

Beyond racing, you’ll be looking at the battle mode, which has its moments but is best played against a few buddies. The weapon list isn’t high enough to build any strategy for your game, resulting in a mostly run-and-gun battle. It’s a fun way to pass the time, but probably not something you’ll be craving to return to. I’d give the edge to the actual racing mode in terms of fun.

The Pod

LittleBigPlanet Karting keeps the stuff that players know about LBP, like the pod, the endless creation suite, and the general look and feel of the game, but, in doing that, they seem to have created another problem for themselves in the race select screen. Like LittleBigPlanet, the level select screen is made up of planets. In this game, the planets get so full of different races that you can barely tell what’s happening. I went into the wrong race a bunch of times because of this. Yes, you can still read what the level is, but it shouldn’t be so congested that you can’t see what’s going on.

Story

The story seems to be the primary focus in LBP Karting, and while this would be a nice thing to focus on for most games, the story mode in this game leaves something to be desired. It’s not that the story is bad; it’s pretty good. It’s simply annoying that it’s told with subtitles instead of voice-overs. The cutscenes look somewhat thrown together compared to the polish in previous LittleBigPlanet games. The story does revisit previous worlds and characters from LBP and does a good job of bringing it all together, but I wish it had engaged the player a little better. The cutscenes were just too uninspired for me.

Multiplayer

Multiplayer is something that didn’t get much love in LBPK. You can play multiplayer matches, but there isn’t much incentive to go online beyond the leaderboards for each race. The whole point of a karting game is usually to compete against other players, and yet, that seems to be the exact opposite of what this game wants you to do. This is a primarily single-player experience with a tacked-on multiplayer mode for the ones that want it there, nothing more. There are no special multiplayer modes to play for fun other than to play other people’s creations, which may be all that some want. I want to dive into a more feature-rich multiplayer mode in a racing game.

Creations

The creation suite for LBP Karting is the bread and butter of the game and probably what will salvage the rest of what’s here, but I noticed a couple of things that were puzzling not to include. One was the “auto-populate” option being removed, the other was the individual tutorials being removed in favor of non-interactive videos. The “auto-populate” option inspires more creativity, so I can understand how that can be beneficial, as it will create more unique levels. However, the removal of interactive tutorials is a big step back. Those tutorials allowed novice players to access complicated options and try them themselves. Now it’s simply a video, sometimes making finding what you’re looking for hard. There were some nice tracks on the servers already, but I really would like to see players being guided in the right direction in an easier way than this.

Conclusion

I had high hopes for LittleBigPlanet Karting, and I wanted it to succeed as a good successor to ModNation Racers, but I feel like it’s a step back from that game and left a lot of room for improvement. The core gameplay is enjoyable, but you’ll search for something better after an hour unless you’re a creator, in which case you might find more enjoyment.