Sketch a track, mess with the elevations, and sprinkle it with yapping penguins: it's done in five minutes. ModNation just wants you to make something. LittleBigPlanet wants you to make exactly what's in your head, even though doing that is likely to be fiddly and annoying (and, if it's my head we're talking about, it will be filled with stray tumbleweeds and set to the distant toll of a sad, rusty bell). ModNation is built around user-generated content, but it takes an entirely different approach to that offered by Media Molecule. The whole LittleBigPlanet thing is a bit misleading, though. It's borrowed almost all of its best ideas, perhaps, but it's a very entertaining homage. Sony's jouncing, knockabout title flings it players around hairpin tracks where they're free to collect weapons (although, in a WipEout-ish twist, they can now convert them into boost), tackle crazy jumps, zip through giant Tiki Skulls and even pick up a tiny, crucial jolt of nitro at the very beginning of a race if they can start their engines at just the right moment. Well, the Mario Kart bit is certainly true. The shorthand for ModNation Racers has always been Mario Kart meets LittleBigPlanet.

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