Hmmm...
OK then, here is my initial pit report. It was going to be a track report, but getting a mulitplayer game is harder than pulling off a 100,000 point drift. The report is not all bad though..
Upon the initial boot of the game, I was annoyed at the length of time it took to install. It wouldn't of been so bad if that was reflected in faster game load times, but it is not - this game takes an eon to load up!
It is safe to say that I love this game, I really love this game. It is everything that I thought it would be, and much more besides. The presentation is slick and very funny in places, with nice little touches that put a smile on your face - the 'car-jacking ad' was hilarious!
As already mentioned, it is nigh on impossible to find an XP game. I would have put it down to the early adopter factor, but I think there is more to it than that, basically, the servers are crap!
Besides, that, almost every player I met in the Modspot had much higher rankings than me. Looking at the profiles of other MNRs show that some had raced thousands of races and had hundreds of thousands of XP. HOW!? I was lucky to scrape together sixty or seventy XP points in nearly eight hours of (attempted) racing! Obviously somebody somewhere is getting a race, unfortunately, it was not me!
It is fair to say that my only experiences of multiplayer racing last night, was drifting around the Modspot venue with other racers, and bunny-hopping onto the central plinth. It was fun for a while, but it started to grate, when I was even getting kicked from there! There is a silver lining to that dark cloud though, as I can now drift like a superstar, if only I could put those new found skills to use!
THERE IS ONE BUG THAT SONY NEED TO FIX ASAP! I had to shout that one out, because it is a biggie, in fact it is glaringly big! I think I raced three or four games online against human competition last night, and during one, I battled to the front of the pack, but was pipped to the post by another racer.
Upon finishing the race, I was expecting the XP and an increase in rank, but was greeted with a message stating that I was being disconnected from the server! I did not gain any of the rewards for finishing the race, and I was unceremoniously dumped back to the Modspot, ever so slightly miffed.
Now, I don't know how Sony handle the XP races, whether they are hosted centrally or hosted by fellow racers, but they need to nail this problem very quickly - IF I FINISH A RACE, I EXPECT THE REWARDS FOR FINISHING THE RACE! There are no ifs or buts about this, and Sony need to address the problem immediately!
Luckily though, MNR has depth. I found that the customisation options are some of the most thorough, and well thought out I have seen in any game to date. Due to the lack of online action, I consigned myself to learning some of the skills needed to create a killer race track.
Boy, oh boy, did I love that! I was literally burning away the midnight petroleum
in my efforts to create an uber race. There are comprehensive tutorials that help you get the best out of the many tools that are available, and I have to say that I would be almost content with just creating tracks, almost...
So in conclusion, I feel that this game is worthy of a purchase. It has a few problems that need to be ironed out, but all in all it is a first class release. 👍