Kart racing is a difficult genre to pull off in this day and age due to the success and outright domination of the genre from Mario Kart. However every now and again a gleam of hope comes from the horizon that a new challenger may step up to take the crown, or at least come close to it. This time round the contender is LittleBigPlanet, Sony's world renowned creation tool with mascot Sackboy in tow. Unfortunately as per usual, a gleam of hope is all we can have because the final product leaves much to be desired.
LBP Karting continues the story of Sackboy after the events of LBP2 wherein the Negativatron was defeated, bringing peace and happiness back once again to the inhabitants of the Imagiverse. Now however a new threat has emerged in the form of thieves known as The Hoard. The Hoard steal all manner of things from the different worlds in the Imagiverse and collect them on their own planet. It is up to you, Sackboy, to defeat the Hoard the only way you can, by beating them in races...OK now I know this is a game who's target audience is children but still. Considering that Sackboy managed to solve the worlds problems twice by platforming, I'm pretty sure he could have done the same to the Hoard right? Well that's never explained as to why you can only defeat them by beating them in races and how that stops them from collecting this is unknown to me but nonetheless that is the poorly thought out story to LBP Karting.
The game has 7 levels each with around 15 events...or so it makes you believe. The majority of the events in Karting can only be completed with two or more players as this is a multiplayer focussed game. Now this would not normally be a problem if it didn't stop you from being able to fully complete the story of the game but unfortunately it means you'll miss out on many collectibles for use in the creation tool and you'll never be able to 100% the campaign, unless you have a friend to play with. Plus this reduces the games length to a pitiful 5-6 hours to do absolutely everything.
What also plagues LBP Karting is the poorly laid out menu's. You are given a top down view of the planet with the events stitched onto it much like standard LBP fashion, however once you complete an event, more patches show up over the planet causing at times an undecipherable mess of events that is difficult to navigate. You can also only play multiplayer on select tracks and must enter multiplayer by going onto the story mode and selecting the event you want in its multiplayer state.
Its a confusing and downright idiotic menu system that takes time to navigate and to learn how to use properly, for something you're going to be using a lot, you would think the event selection would have been better laid out.
As for the actual racing LittleBigplanet is a reasonably competent kart racer. The track design is some of the best in the genre and easily rivals Mario Kart, with some excellent kart handling that is extremely easy to pick up and master. Combat however is a little less exciting, you never know what weapon you are picking up much like in Mario Kart but what they boil down to is a array of rockets and lightening bolts that have different purposes. The only truly outstanding weapons are the fast forward mechanic which gives the impression of a video cassette fast forwarding and essentially acting as a boost; and the boxing glove which acts a Bullet Bill equivalent.
The A.I will also regularly cheat and has some pretty major rubber banding issues at times, though this should be expected due to the game being developed by the people behind ModNation Racers, which lest we forget was infamous for cheating A.I and outrageous rubber banding issues.
Presents are littered around the track for you to drive over and collect, these contain items for you to use in the creation tool.
The creation tool itself is a stripped down version of the previous LBP games and a more complex tool than what was included in ModNation Racers making creating tracks not only more difficult but a long winded and frustrating ordeal. It also means you have fewer customisation options available to you due to its stripped back nature.
Kart and character customisation has surprisingly been pretty much forgotten about. Sackboy is nowhere near as customisable as he has been in the last two games meaning I stuck with a DLC skin I had downloaded; the kart also cannot be coloured or decorated in any major way, the only interchangeable parts are the wheels and body which are only available as preset options and none of which are terrible exciting. For a game all about creation, which has always been LBP's biggest focus, this game allows surprisingly little of it.
The biggest thing LBP has going in its favour is its gorgeous visuals. LittleBigPlanet games have always had that unique patchwork art style that is not only family friendly but extremely good looking. Combine that with a brand new game engine and some great track design and you have yourself one good looking game. It does however suffer from frame rate issues when things get hectic, but due to the nature of combat in LBP Karting this doesn't happen too often.
The soundtrack is nice, fits the mood of the game well alongside providing some catchy and well crafted tunes to race to. The effects are also good but most have been re-used from previous LBP games. Stephen Fry's narrating has been considerably cut down for Karting and the dialogue he provides isn't all that interesting either, which is a major shame as that is where some of LBP's best jokes came from.
All in all, LBP Karting is a 2nd rate karting experience from a franchise that really should have known better. Though it is more fun to play than ModNation Racers, its major shortfalls in pretty much every area imaginable make this a hard game to recommend unless it was extremely cheap and even then I would advise going for a different karting game altogether.
The kids should like it though and if you can manage to get your head around the creation tool, I'm pretty sure you could make some impressive racetracks.
It just goes to show that LBP should stick to what its good at...platforming.
LittleBigPlanet Karting – 5/10
+Fun Driving Mechanics
+Amazing, Genre Leading Track Design
+Gorgeous Visuals
-Confusing User Interface
-Bad Story
-Unimaginative Combat
-A.I Issues
-Criminally Short
