The beta begins with a cute video that shows off the history of the ModNation Racing Championship and introduces players to the ModSpot, the game's central hub. Here it's a quick ride over to races, customization options, and some very promising online-based features. Not that the developers at United Front Games and SCE Studio San Diego have too worry about this, but the game almost assumes that the player has an internet connection. With so many of the game's defining features based around online connectivity, those very few PS3 owners without a network connection may need to get around to setting up a network. You'll see the top racers, karts, custom tracks, and daily competitions easily accessible from here, along with a big screen monitor showing you what your friends are up to.

While I was eager to race, the first thing I wanted to get into when I loaded the beta up was the Creation Station, the place where you can create levels and customize your racer and kart to your heart's content. Piecing together a character was extremely simple and snappy. With a user interface reminiscent of Little Big Planet, it shouldn't take a player more than a minute or two to put a basic character together, and advanced users that are a little pickier can use the individual customization options (color, position, rotation, etc.) to create their works of art. While the beta currently displays a limited amount of options for character customizations, it promises heaps of selections, currently grayed out, for the full release. Browsing through the eye options, I saw that they are planning to include 260 different pairs of eyes and 315 mouths, each with their own set of animations and emotional states. I'm not sure that I'll ever get around to using them all, but between those choices and the individual customization options the title should give players all the assets they need to create just about any biped character they want. Kart options were equaled limited in this beta, but promised the same plethora of options in the full release. Those that are too lazy to create their own Mod can head on over to the sharing area and browse through other people's creations.

After putting together a little mohawked creature from under the sea, I took him out for his first race. As a racing game, ModNation doesn't set out to reinvent the kart racing wheel, but it does an admirable job at providing the basics of the genre. Again, this aspect reminded me a lot of the design ideas behind Little Big Planet. The draw here isn't racing itself, but what you're driving as and where you're racing. Expect analogous slide/boost mechanics that you would see in Mario Kart, but now you're not limited to finite number of racers or tracks. While this is fantastic for tracks, it's a double-edged sword for racers. From what I could tell, it didn't really matter what kart or character creation assets I used, as all of them drove very similarly. It provides a level playing field for players, but those used to racing with more eccentric characters in other games (think extreme examples of lights and heavies like Toad or Browser) may not feel immediately comfortable here. ModNation may not go out of a limb to define itself through unique racing mechanics, but the title is one of the few in it's genre to take some of its statistics seriously. Players can gain experience points with every race and data is kept calculated on daily, weekly, and monthly basis. The attention to detail is nice and provides the player with a constant sense of progression.

One of the most impressive things I saw during the game's announcement was track creation. Popping into this area was the absolute best experience I had with the beta. While this isn't the first title to offer a feature like this, this has to be the most user-friendly experiences I've run into. It was almost as if the designers of game created this feature set with a motto of "it's as simple as you need it to be." A player could easily hop in and create a track with hills, banks, twists and turns under a minute. The game has a spiffy auto-populate button that will then generate and place all the extra doodads you'd want to make it more aesthetically pleasing. Those that want to or enjoy getting into the smallest detail of the track can get as picky as they want with the advanced tools. For someone like me that appreciated what Little Big Planet tried to do with level creation but ultimately disliked how difficult it was to create with, I feel that ModNation's beta delivered on all its promises of providing easy to use tools to create just about any race track you can think up.

The current beta isn't without flaws though. As one should expect from any beta, loads are a little long, lag is an issue as they nail down netcode (probably the reason for this beta to begin with), and it did lock up a few times. That stuff isn't anything out of the ordinary in any beta build, but what did really grind my gears were the omni-present announcers. While I'm sure they exist because the Mods themselves cannot really be a distinct speaking character, these guys are no Statler and Waldorf. I found them to be pretty annoying after a few races and I wanted to turn them off. On a similar note, the game's soundtrack was made up of fairly generic hip-hop that I would describe as serviceably bland. Not offensive so much as it was just boring and flat. I sincerely hope that custom soundtracks are supported in the final release as it would definitely help extend the life of the game. For a game that's all about customization, it would be terrible if all players were forced to listen to the same thing (like Little Big Planet's great but way too repetitive soundtrack).

Overall, I was really impressed with this beta. It showed that the team is set to deliver on all the ambitious goals they set out to conquer while providing players with a fun and simple pick-up-and-play experience. A lot of work has gone into this title and it shows with a great visual look, impressive tech, and intuitive design. This beta has set the title up to be one of my most anticipated releases in the very crowded Spring 2010 calendar.