ModNation Racers

By Oliver Von Trapp III

After downloading PSone classic title Syndicate Wars – Bullfrog's 1996 sequel to megahit Syndicate, I begin to worry – will this aging piece of software I bought on a whim for $8.45 be a waste? I begin to play and holy crap – I'm right. I only ever played it on PC back in the day. A PC has a mouse. PSP? Not so much. Crpfck. Oh well, at least the first mission is pretty easy. A heap of button presses to remember; R trigger plus down is what again? Balls. I just dropped a minigun when I meant to select agent 2. Hmmm. Any way of zooming out at all? No. Changing the viewing angle? No. You can rotate to your hearts content though. Okay. This game sucks. That's fine. One more mission. Woah - this game is hard – some agents and Church of the New Epochlings turned up straight away and destroyed me. No quicksave. Just got rid of 4 agents. Restart. Same again. I'm starting to like this. I actually have to not be a potato like organism to beat the levels. Double nice. I tool up my dudes with better weapons and its still a bit tough. I have a gaggle of civilians who've been 'persuadertronned' into following me. They all carry weapons but are basically useless meat sacks. Kinda like the type of person Modnation Racers targets. That and children.

Revisiting PSone games on PSP reminds us that back catalogues are awesome - like Syndicate Wars. And Grandia. F*%$ that Final Fantasy turd that never ends. Suck on some sweet Game Arts goodness. The characters swear, they have silly crushes. Oh and Grandia's battle system has got to be the best in any RPG ever except Grandia 2 and 3.

Another good thing about PSone classics is for spastics like me who still have a Sega Saturn, I can play the games I never could get. Joy. Without selling out, mind you. See, buying a PSP which is a dead machine, allows me to save Sega face and look admiringly at my shiny Dreamcast while cursing PS2 for rubbishing my dreams of Burning Rangers 2. Where was I? Something about Grandia. Kinda linear, but most Jap RPGS are, but as I mentioned the battle system totally rules - especially on the bosses - where horror of horrors, you will actually die. Thank the Lord for that. Unlike Modnation Racers which you can play upside down and submerged in water and somehow you'll scrape through to the next race.

So... when you finally get off the boat and arrive at the New World port in Grandia, sumptuously realised, you can't help but talk to all the locals. What will they tell you? Where will you go next? And where is that mine cart section I remember reading about in 1996? Ah hah! Here it is, wahey! Oh its really just a cut scene. Still, I have some sweet spells to upgrade. In short - Syndicate Wars on PSone classics download = Very Good. Same goes for Grandia. (Both also available on PS3)

Modnation Racers = sure its customisable but its really quite toilet. Just get a DS and Mario Kart. Seriously.

Game: Modnation Racers
System: Playstation Portable
Developer: SCE San Diego Studio
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

Rating: 20%

(Ratings Key/Explanation)