ModNation Racer’s is developed by  United Front Games who is located in Vancouver. The motto behind MNR is “Play, Create, and Share”, you may remember a similar motto from another Sony title Little Big Planet.

The game looks great and the controls work really well. The typical premise of a racing game is to drift around corners, collect boost, collect power up’s to blow your enemies out of the track and you also have the ability to block enemy attacks as well.

I had the most fan sitting down making my character and I think the real legs of this game are going to come from the user generated content. I wish I had more time to sit down and design a track for everyone to play but don’t worry as soon as the game is released on May 25th I’ll be working hard to get a level out. I’m also excited to see what their downloadable content plan will be for this game. What kind of crazy cool stickers, objects, animals and potential tie in’s with other Sony franchises.

Photo’s from the Event:

From the moment you start Uncharted 2 you will notice how gorgeous this game is, in fact I will say I don’t there is a better looking next gen game. This games audio is a reason to get a surround sound system or a very end set of headphones is to experience the audio. The gun sounds; the rain and music simply compliment and go hand in hand with this game. The voice acting is simply brilliant throughout the game Nathan Drake will simply leaving you laughing at the remarks he makes. The supporting cast in the game also has some tremendous voice acting. The actors can only do so much with a script that the writing team gives them and wherever Naughty Dog found these writers they deserve a big pay raise.

Uncharted 2 does not do a whole lot different from the first game but it just does it better. The combat in Drake’s Fortune was one of the weak spots of the game, the team over at naughty has greatly improved the shooting mechanics and it certainly shows. Enemies are no longer bullet sponges unless they are completely covered in Kevlar armour. The cover mechanics have also greatly improved allowing Nathan slide from cover to cover effectively. Blowing enemies up with grenades is always fun but it was a real struggle in first game which involved using the D-pad or six axis. Now all you have to do is aim and tap L2. It’s much easier and more effective. Melee combat is just more fun to use as well and there are several trophies available to encourage melee combat. There is also a heavy focus on stealth whether it be shooting enemies from ledges, pulling enemies off of ledges or running down the very quietly and then knocking out the enemy.

I played it on normal and beat the game just under 10 hours that has Nathan Drake searching for a mythical city of Shangri-La because he wants unravel the mystery of Marco Polo’s voyage from China in 1292. After spending time with Kublai Khan, Marco departed with 14 ships and 600 passengers and crew but when he arrived at destination he only had 1 ship and 18 passengers. Throughout the course of the game Nate encounters friend Flynn who turns into a foe, Chloe, Zoran Lazarevic, our good friend Sully and Elena.

One of the biggest editions to the game is multiplayer. There is Co-operative multiplayer as well competitive multiplayer. First up for co-op will allow 3 players to take on roles of Nathan and 2 other characters as they make their way through gun fights and team based objectives. Should one of your comrades should fall you will need to revive them and I have to say as someone who was downed a lot good teammates are key to this mode. Gold Rush has players team up to get a treasure and return it to their base. You also have survival mode where you take on wave after wave of bad guys or girls. For competitive play you get the usual deathmatch, elimination and capture the treasure and much more. There is a bit of RPG element to the multiplayer as you can gain ranks and in turn allows you to buy perks or upgrades with the cash you earned in game (if you finished Uncharted you’ll start with 80k). Levels have been taken right out of the first player campaign so that means you can climb up to the get the higher ground on the other team. Naughty has also implemented a party system that works extremely well for a Playstation 3 game.

If you own a Playstation 3 there is no reason why you shouldn’t play this game. It’s gorgeous looking, it’s funny and it was one of the first games in a long time made me completely lose track of time. The single player campaign is epic and multiplayer is quite fun and for 60 dollars this game is a steal!.

Sony’s current offerings

Microsoft’s current offerings

All prices were determined on the XBL Canadian Marketplace, Canadian Playstation Network store, Bestbuy.ca,futreshop.ca and amazon.ca

Teh Bad:
Levels feel very short, leaves you wondering where’s the where the hell is the rest of this level?
Useless motion control
Story? What story!

Overall this is a much needed first party game for the Playstation 3. It packs great visuals,great cut scenes, overall great game play. Oh and yes the multiplayer is what pushes Killzone 2 into a must buy title.