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LittleBigPlanet Karting
PlayStation 3
When Hoarders Attack
2/5 stars
“LittleBigPlanet Karting” (“LBP Karting”) is the long-awaited ‘official’ entry of the ‘LittleBigPlanet’ franchise into the go-kart racing subgenre. After United Front released “ModNation” racers, it seemed like a little bit of down-tweaking to the AI’s evil and a little more sackcloth were all that was needed to create the ‘Mario Kart’ killer Sony so desperately wanted. Would United Front and Media Molecule working together be able to provide the winning formula, or would something go horribly wrong?
Presentation
“LBP Karting” looks exactly like the other games in the ‘LittleBigPlanet’ franchise. There is even a significant amount of overlap in the unlockable building and customization goodies. “LBP Karting” is, for all intents and purposes, a piece of software that, like “LittleBigPlanet 2”, could have been released as a discount-priced expansion pack for an existing game in the franchise. Yes, there are some tweaks to the game engine, as these were required to transition from the 2D platforming gameplay of traditional ‘LittleBigPlanet’ games to 3D racing. Of course, after the fact, “LBP Karting” dropped appreciably in price, from the $60 launch price to a much more reasonable $30. Unfortunately, I pre-ordered the game in desperation for another title for the MeltedJoystick crew to play as a local co-op experience. Thus I ended up essentially paying $30 for a Kevin Butler costume pack for Sackboy. Ouch.
Everything in the sound department is just as rehashed and warmed over as the visuals. Stephen Fry returns to reprise his role of narrator, but really doesn’t seem to be ‘into’ it anymore, as his performance feels somewhat irritated and bored.
Story:
“LBP Karting” has significantly more story than most kart racing games. It seems that, after the events of “LittleBigPlanet 2,” a group of heartless sackfolk known as ‘The Hoard’ appeared and started collecting all of the goodies in CraftWorld, yet never bothered to take the time to use those goodies to make original creations. This kind of ham-handed evangelizing was pretty ridiculous in the ‘Metal Gear Solid Pack’ for the original “LittleBigPlanet,” in which the villain was nefariously creating hundreds of “LittleBigPlanet” levels whose sole purpose was allowing players to easily unlock all of the game’s Trophies – it just feels like dead-horse-beating at this point. Anyway, The Hoard love to race go-karts, so Sackboy must take to the road in order to defeat them, beat them to the goodies, and hopefully convince them of the error of their ways.
Some of the CraftWorld globes in “LBP Karting” are rehashes of the globes in “LittleBigPlanet 2,” while some are new. These globes each feature a dominant non-player character who supposedly created all of the racetracks therein and who needs Sackboy’s help in warding off The Hoard.
The story is utilitarian enough, but nothing special. The only thing I actually enjoyed about the story in “LBP Karting” is the number of ‘hoard’ related nicknames among the enemy racers. They will come in handy when referencing the hoarder I know in real life.
Gameplay
“LBP Karting” is like an incomplete fusion of “ModNation Racers” and “LittleBigPlanet 2.” The strategic karting engine of drifts/boosts/shields that made “ModNation Racers” stand out in the sea of copycat kart racing games has been abandoned in favor of a game engine that resembles ‘Mario Kart’ in almost every way. The powerups are all copies of ‘Mario Kart’ powerups, defending against attacks relies on the ‘Mario Kart’ style of throwing an item to the rear when a projectile gets close, and drifting provides an instant ‘Mario Kart’ style boost instead of filling a boost gauge. All-in-all, this dumbing-down of the “ModNation Racers” engine is a huge step backwards. Without unique gameplay elements, “LBP Karting” must stand on the quality of its track designs… and those aren’t really all that great.
Of course, in a Play/Create/Share game like “LBP Karting,” it should be easy to find spectacular player-made tracks online, especially after beating players over the head with the concept that NOT creating and sharing makes them as villainous as The Hoard… right? Wrong. “LBP Karting’s” creation engine is much more complicated than the creation engine in “ModNation Racers.” While more complexity does technically allow more variety, in actuality, the huge bump in complexity has made it so that far fewer players have even bothered to share tracks. While I created numerous tracks, karts, and characters to share in “ModNation Racers,” I became frustrated trying to re-create one of my “ModNation Racers” tracks in “LBP Karting” thanks to the obtuse, user-hostile nature of the new create mode. I even made a few stages in the previous ‘LittleBigPlanet’ games, yet “LBP Karting” is more frustrating to use than either one of those as well!
Thus without a solid gameplay engine and without a usable creation engine, “LBP Karting” is left to stand on its single-player and multi-player experiences alone. Unfortunately, United Front doesn’t seem to be able to create non-terrible racing AI. “LBP Karting” has both a ‘Normal’ and ‘Casual’ difficulty for the entirety of Story Mode, with ‘Normal’ being just as hair-raisingly difficult as the ‘Normal’ in “ModNation Racers.” ‘Casual’ started out reasonably fun, but after a patch or two, it has been dumbed-down to moronic levels.
Even without the impossibility of finding a ‘fun’ level of AI competition, the way the game is designed falls flat in every way. First, all of the collectable goodies are scattered on the racetracks. This means that it’s necessary to play every track at least twice: Once to screw around finding prize bubbles and once to actually win. Second, the game proclaims to be for 1-4 players, but the MeltedJoystick crew found to our chagrin that Story Mode is only available to 2 local players. This problem is blatantly false advertisement, and I was hoping Media Molecule would force United Front to patch-in 4-player co-op for all of the Story Mode tracks… but it never happened. Third, there are a number of annoying mini-game challenges on each CraftWorld globe that are only single-player, and aren’t particularly fun. Many of these challenges seem to exist for the sole purpose of showing off the diversity of the creation engine, allowing tracks with old-school arcade camera angles, karts that require pit-stops lest they run out of fuel, and other annoying gameplay elements that DON’T belong in a kart racing game at all. Fourth, while there are a large variety of unlockable karts, the game is intentionally opaque as to the qualities of each, making it impossible to determine a kart’s handling capabilities without extensive self-testing. Finally, the rooster crow that used to mark the collection of all prize bubbles with in a stage is gone, leaving players to guess whether or not they found all the goodies until the race is over.
Overall
“LittleBigPlanet Karting” is the most disappointing kart racing game I’ve ever played. It breaks all of the multi-player promises made by its core ‘LittleBigPlanet’ franchise, while simultaneously proving that United Front really has no business making any more kart racing games, considering they can’t get the AI right and are perfectly willing to replace great gameplay mechanics with generic copies of more successful franchises. It was a mistake to buy this game for full price, and it would still be a mistake to buy it at its discounted price. It’s obvious that the gaming public has rightly come to this conclusion already, as the online portion of “LBP Karting” is all but dead. It’s always possible that Media Molecule and United Front might be able to get their ducks in a row and patch the game to death in order to make it a more enjoyable experience, but I’m done holding my breath.
Presentation: 4.5/5
Story: 3/5
Gameplay: 2/5
Overall (not an average): 2/5
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