The fact that the Vita version of ModNation Racers lets you access all the user-created content made by the PlayStation 3 community is brilliant. From day one you'll have absolutely loads of really quite decent tracks, mods and karts to choose from. A lot of them will be a bit rubbish, put together by people messing about with the tools, but the rating and filtering systems mean these aren't hard to avoid. As a launch title without online play ModNation Racers Road Trip might struggle against the gorgeous looking WipEout 2048, but if content is king then this Kart racer deserves to do reasonably well.
As discussed on this week's podcast, Tom Pearson and I have been playing The Binding of Isaac, the most recent game from Edmund McMillen, one of the brains behind Super Meat Boy. It's essentially a dungeon crawler, fused with roguelike elements and a freaky plot involving a boy whose mother is trying to kill him. Enemies tend to attack you with either blood or turds, and your primary weapon is the tears you weep across the room. It's rock hard too, and to be honest the handling gets on my tits a bit; where Meatboy's movements were razor sharp, Isaac feels like a drugged-up ice skater... a drugged up ice skater in a world of blood and turds. It's not the kind of thing you'd expect to see in Dancing On Ice. Control issues aside, it's got a lot of character, though.
Why does man exist? That's a question, isn't it? I think I've got an answer: to play Skyrim. At least that's how it is for me, anyway. I've reached the point where I genuinely think there's some subliminal messaging in this game, as when I'm not eating pies or trying to find a new place to live I'm secretly thinking about playing Skyrim, or I'm just sitting on my bum playing Skyrim. Hands up if you love secondary quests! It's like the game that keeps on giving, provided you like being given an endless stream of dungeons and hitting Draugr with sharp sticks.
The ongoing epic story of me hitting things with lightsabers continues. One of the primary things I've complained about throughout the last few weeks is how linear the actual environment design is. Unlike WoW you can't exactly meander in that traditionally free and aimless way the old MMO player should be used to - instead in TOR there's a very clear path laid out in front of you which feels increasingly more claustrophobic the longer you stay in one area. I realise you're still dealing with big areas, but your ability to memorise a map well enough to find helpful shortcuts, or to explore obscure areas on the edge of a zone is non-existent. This is built more for users interested in character stories, not explorers. So whatever, to each his own. On that note, for anyone wondering I already have a bi-weekly Star Wars: The Old Republic diary on the cards, analysing in tedious detail the relevant aspects of the game.
