I have a love-hate relationship with this game. Kart racers are one of my most favorite genres, so the thought of a User Generated Content kart racing game sounded amazing. On the surface, LBPK is a LBP themed reskin of Modnation Racers which came out about 3 years prior. ModNation Racers was pretty good, but I felt they could've given you a bit more control over your tracks. When I learned that this game was being made and the main focus was giving you more tools to get more out of your tracks, I was super excited.
Upon release, it's evident that something went wrong. Right away, you can tell Media Molecule had no hand in making LBPK. It's unpolished, quite buggy, and the editing mode has an immense learning curve, dwarving the learning curve compared to previous LBP entries. It crashes frequently, which means there will be lots of times you lose work in the editor unless you’re constantly saving. Compared to ModNation, it feels like you had more track customization options but far less character and kart customization options. You can't customize the NPCs you race against in your own levels, so it was difficult to make anything story-driven. When the online was working, you were constantly booted from races. You were also only allowed to favorite a certain amount of tracks before it started taking older ones off your list. At some point, it just stopped recording your new favorites altogether. The online tracks in the "Cool Levels" section (New and Popular levels) never changed since Day 1.
Whoever was in charge of the servers was fully aware of the reception to this game, as the online servers only lasted a little over 5 years. That's also unfortunate, considering the main attraction of LBP is usually the online levels. It's a shame that some of the coolest tracks in this game are only viewable on YouTube now while others are just completely lost to time. I wish they had some sort of end-of-life plan for this game so that it was easier for players to keep playing their favorite online levels while offline. I don't know how large each level file is, but if they're relatively small, I think it would've gone a huge way if the devs patched in an "All-Time Community Favorites" section that you could access offline once the online was killed off.
As for the actual racing itself, it’s alright. The controls feel a little floaty but you can get used to them pretty easily. I like that they kept the weapon system from ModNation, where you can use any weapon to block a weapon homing in on you. The only trade off is that there's probably three times as many leader seekers (blue shells) than most racing games. In your own levels, you can make completely custom weapons that function differently from the base set. There's also a Story Mode, but it's not very memorable at all. The levels are tightly crafted and offer a variety of different gameplay styles, which makes it seem like a demo of what the Creation Mode can do. Some people have dug through the files and found that there was potentially going to be more Story Mode content and prizes available to the player, but it appears to have been cut due to time constraints.
It should also be noted that this game doesn't just offer racing. You can make battle arenas, though I tend to find them half-baked in most racing games and this one is no exception. However, using the Battle Arena game type in your own levels offers a huge variety of other activities. The game gives you the ability to set win conditions based on score, weapon targets, racing gates, and more. This means you could make a King of the Hill style game mode, a ring-rally race, freeze tag, Keep Away, Shine Runners and Balloon Battle from Mario Kart, Cops and Robbers, and so, so much more. Albeit it's a pain to program in this game compared to LBP2, the mantra remains the same: if you can think it, you can make it.
Despite the low points, I find myself loading this game up every once in a while to make a new track. There's just something so satisfying about drafting an idea, building it in-game, and tweaking it to perfection, even if I’m going to be the only person to ever play it. It's sad to see an idea for a game like this flop; if given more time and resources for its development, this game could've been endless fun. This is probably the closest thing to my personal dream game that we'll ever get.
Upon release, it's evident that something went wrong. Right away, you can tell Media Molecule had no hand in making LBPK. It's unpolished, quite buggy, and the editing mode has an immense learning curve, dwarving the learning curve compared to previous LBP entries. It crashes frequently, which means there will be lots of times you lose work in the editor unless you’re constantly saving. Compared to ModNation, it feels like you had more track customization options but far less character and kart customization options. You can't customize the NPCs you race against in your own levels, so it was difficult to make anything story-driven. When the online was working, you were constantly booted from races. You were also only allowed to favorite a certain amount of tracks before it started taking older ones off your list. At some point, it just stopped recording your new favorites altogether. The online tracks in the "Cool Levels" section (New and Popular levels) never changed since Day 1.
Whoever was in charge of the servers was fully aware of the reception to this game, as the online servers only lasted a little over 5 years. That's also unfortunate, considering the main attraction of LBP is usually the online levels. It's a shame that some of the coolest tracks in this game are only viewable on YouTube now while others are just completely lost to time. I wish they had some sort of end-of-life plan for this game so that it was easier for players to keep playing their favorite online levels while offline. I don't know how large each level file is, but if they're relatively small, I think it would've gone a huge way if the devs patched in an "All-Time Community Favorites" section that you could access offline once the online was killed off.
As for the actual racing itself, it’s alright. The controls feel a little floaty but you can get used to them pretty easily. I like that they kept the weapon system from ModNation, where you can use any weapon to block a weapon homing in on you. The only trade off is that there's probably three times as many leader seekers (blue shells) than most racing games. In your own levels, you can make completely custom weapons that function differently from the base set. There's also a Story Mode, but it's not very memorable at all. The levels are tightly crafted and offer a variety of different gameplay styles, which makes it seem like a demo of what the Creation Mode can do. Some people have dug through the files and found that there was potentially going to be more Story Mode content and prizes available to the player, but it appears to have been cut due to time constraints.
It should also be noted that this game doesn't just offer racing. You can make battle arenas, though I tend to find them half-baked in most racing games and this one is no exception. However, using the Battle Arena game type in your own levels offers a huge variety of other activities. The game gives you the ability to set win conditions based on score, weapon targets, racing gates, and more. This means you could make a King of the Hill style game mode, a ring-rally race, freeze tag, Keep Away, Shine Runners and Balloon Battle from Mario Kart, Cops and Robbers, and so, so much more. Albeit it's a pain to program in this game compared to LBP2, the mantra remains the same: if you can think it, you can make it.
Despite the low points, I find myself loading this game up every once in a while to make a new track. There's just something so satisfying about drafting an idea, building it in-game, and tweaking it to perfection, even if I’m going to be the only person to ever play it. It's sad to see an idea for a game like this flop; if given more time and resources for its development, this game could've been endless fun. This is probably the closest thing to my personal dream game that we'll ever get.