Reece Reviews: Modnation Racers

Ooh I say a review. Enjoy folks:


The PS3 has had a pretty good year of exclusives so far, with God of War 3, Demons souls and Heavy Rain. Joining this list is Modnation Racers" a kart racing game which belongs to the "play,create,share" range of games which is already home to the fantastic Little Big Planet. But can Modnation Racers live up to the quality of these aforementioned titles? Why yes, yes it does.

Let's get stuck into the main bulk of this game, which is customisation. Modnation offers a gigantic amount of freedom when character creation is concerned. The characters, Mods,start off as plain white vinyl figures and it is up to you to design your character from scratch. At first this may seem daunting, but whipping up a character couldn't be simpler. There are hundreds of pre made clothes and hairstyles to make a simple character with ease. However, for those who want to get into more detail there is the sticker system. The stickers can be manipulated into any shape and size you choose, and you can spend hours working on just one mod if you put your mind to it. The track creator is a work of genius as well. Once you have laid a track out, you can either auto populate your track (which adds weapons,obstacles and scenery to your track) or you can do it all yourself with the easy to use tools at hand, but don't be surprised if you end up auto-populating your first few tracks. The kart creation is slightly disappointing, lacking the in-depth customisation seen with characters and tracks.

Of course, what would be the point of all of this if the game wasn't fun to play as well? Thankfully, the game is extremely fun controlling very similar to mario kart. The one thing this game has that it's nintendo rival doesn't is the game-changing boost feature. By drifting,catching air and performing tricks you have boost added to a boost meter which can be used to boost or to bring up a shield, which becomes a constant dilemma in races, do you boost ahead of the competition and be left defenceless, or do you play it safe with the shield and lose precious speed? It's all a matter of balance.

Balance, however, seems to be thrown out of the window when you start the career mode. Like Mario Kart, the A.I racers are brutal and relentless and all the skill in the world wont stop you from being destroyed on that last stretch. The game has its own version of a blue shell, known as the hydra missile. On races towards the end, hydra missiles are very common and shields are used up before you have a chance to earn it again. It's a sometimes fun, but frustrating experience (and thankfully, developers United Front have made a patch which calms the A.I down a bit)

The Online mode is fantastic, thanks to the sharing of mods,karts and tracks. Search for any pop culture icon in the mods section and you can guarantee it will show up.Not in many games can you see Winnie the pooh racing along side Jigsaw. There is Hotlap mode, where users compete daily for the best time on a chosen track. The online racing is a highlight, much like Mario Kart Wii, where it is all down to the skill of the racer not dumb luck. It takes getting used to, but after a while you'll find yourself riding along the top 3 each race.
Finding races takes it's time, and the loading screens can sometimes take a bit too long but United front have promised that a new patch will fix this up.

Overall, with all of the user created content, this game can last for a very long time as long as users remain original and imaginative with their ideas. Bar a few niggles, I think this is one of the best games the PS3 has to offer, and it certainly gives you a break from all the hyper realistic games at the moment. See you on the race track.

Good Points:
.Fantastic customisation
.Visually impressive
.Endless replay value
.Bags of charm

Bad Points:
.Loading times can be a drag
.Unbalanced A.I in career mode
.Feeling your creations are being ignored.

Final Score:92%

Why Comedy Central (and most Media broadcasters these days) are a bunch of pussies.

Pardon the misogynistic term of address in the title, but I am very very angry with comedy central at the mo'.
As any respectable UK South Park fan already knows, the 201'st episode of south park was not shown on the UK comedy central channel, after the episode received multiple complaints in America. The particular episode is also no longer being screened on American channels either. Why? Well, it's all to do with the depiction one particular Muslim prophet: Muhammed.

Just to fill those in who haven't seen a lot of South Park, the depiction of Muhammed has been a theme in four South park episodes now: Cartoon Wars pt 1 and 2, 200 and 201.
The Cartoon wars episodes didn't receive any complaints, despite the fact it was released during the time when that Danish artist drew a picture of Muhammed with a bomb for a hat. However, in 200, even though the show itself explained why they couldn't show muhammed (and they didn't show him at all, just to make that clear) Muslims were still offended because (get this...) they used his name on TV...I am sorry but, OH.MY.GOD.FUCKING.BUDDHA.WHILE.JESUS.TAPES.IT.SUCKING.OFF.KRISHNA.
Ever since that artist made that picture, Muhammed has become such a sore subject, it's absoloutely ridiculous. South Park actually showed muhammed in the episode "Super best friends", and that didn't start anything bad.

I've actually watched 201 online, and by god It's a brilliant episode. Despite one teeny tiny little problem. IT'S CENSORED INTO THE FUCKING SUN! Every usage of the word Muhammed was bleeped, Muhammed was blocked up by a censor bar. And even Kyles obligitory "end of show speech" was entirely bleeped out. At first I thought it was some sort of meta-joke attack against censorship by the creators, but they recently stated that all of the censoring was done by Comedy central.

It just goes to show how spineless some TV stations are. As said in a previous South Park episode, by censoring media becuase of threats, you're letting Terrorism work in the first place, which just shows that maybe that Danish Cartoonist wasn't so wrong after all...

Anyways, see y'all later
Prophet of the "FUCK YOU" faith-Reece

P.S- For those who don't watch south park, but would like to watch some episodes (including the episode I talked about) go to this website
http://www.watchsouthparkonline.net

A rant against those with crap music tastes (My family in simpler speak)

Yet again I find myself sat in the loneliness of my room, staring at the empty void that is facebook wondering where all the time goes. Now before you accuse me of sounding a bit emo, don't worry I'm not slashing my wrists just this second. But if I have to hear one more fucking clubland anthem being blasted through the house then I'll happily grab the butchers knife.

You see, I've always had a bit of a funny approach to music after one of my best mates introduced me to the wonders of "good music" so many years ago. And, if you know me, you already know that "good music" is "indie music". Y'know, music that's actually been produced with talent and dedication to love for music, rather than chart topping music where singers digitally enhance their awful singing voice so it sounds unnaturally good, or when someone takes a song and mucks around with it for a bit to create a "club classic" Oh, and don't forget about all the brand endorsements or chat show plugging, y'know just to grab some more money they don;t really need. This is why I admire indie artists. They're not in it for the money, they're in it for the music and for giving their fans something good and thoughtful to listen to, not to just squeeze some more hard earned cash from their pockets. Unfortuanatley, there are some indie artists who started off good, but once they caught the idiotic general public's attention they let fame and fortune go to their head. For example, "Florence and the machine."
There are indie artists however that hate all the fame and fortune. MGMT is a prime example of this, refusing to put any of the songs on the radio as they felt the popularity of "Kids"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cAQlDf9Vs0 made them appear to be something of a pop band, which the certainly are not. But anyway onto the topic of the blog, my family.

I seem to be the only member of the household who tries to listen to something different, while they all huddle around the iPOD docks in the living room encouraging my brother to dance to whatever club shit they put on. Now, in their defence they do listen to some good music, namely Michael Jackson...however they play his music ALL THE TIME aswell creating even more ranting and raving inside me. You then have the different ways my household reacts to their chosen music. My little brothers tend to listen to whatever is played, and they'll dance to it regardlessly. They listen to my stuff sometimes so at least I can teach them from an early age. My sister blares shit like Ke$ha and 3oh3! out of her phone like all the chavvy little secondary school kids nowadays. My mum tends to sing along in a very unappealing(and drunk) way to most songs, usually getting words wrong and letting out a banshee like "Whoooo!" after every song. My step dad is usually there for encouragement, clapping his hands giving my little brother cringe-worthy dance advice while exlclaiming that Pitbull's "You know you want me"is an "AMAZING TUNE!("http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2tMV96xULk)
In the meanwhile I'll be sat in my room listening to my music praying the Basshunter will go away, but alas my families music taste will not change anytime soon, so I might aswell just grin and bear it... See you all next time

-Reece Wilson.

P.S= Incase you wanted to see my music, I took the liberty of print screening my iTunes. There's not much there but it's all good.

Alchoholism, and why the proposed cider tax isn't going to make a difference.

If you're like me (and probably everyone over the age of 12) you do like a drop of the ol' alchohol every now and again. And when I say that, I mean all the time. I couldn't call myself an alchoholic, but I drink a wee bit too much at home. (I don't go out to drink...I'm not cool enough for that level of social interaction) I also didn't really drink a lot until the end of year 10. I've always felt like the odd one out in most things, and teenage drinking was one of 'em. While everyone around me went out and gave their livers a good kicking without their parents knowing, I was sat at home like a good little boy playing on my PS2 and eating Doritos without a care in the world (well, apart from trying to defeat Sephiroth on Kingdom Hearts II, he was a bitch!). I would regularly walk into school on Monday and be greeted with hangover suffering younglings, while I took pleasure In the fact I didn't have that horrid headache from hell. Although when I finally started drinking though, I soon discovered the "wonders" of a hangover, and it weren't pleasant I tell thee'. But anyway, onto this whole cider Tax nonsense.
Apparently, by raising the tax for cider by 10%, young teenagers will not want to drink any more because it will be too expensive. So...what's going to stop them from wanting cheaper varieties of other drinks then? Young teenagers aren't fussy about what they drink, that's why they drink rat's piss like White Lightning and Strongbow. (Not to sound snobby or anything, but I'm a Kopparberg man) You can get cheap bottles of vodka for about 3 quid, which is perfect for all the slaggy little 13 year olds to get wasted on.

Teenage drinking can't be stopped, It's been going on for years and years now. It's only because of the stupid paranoid country we llive in today which has highlighted this as a problem. I'm not condoning teenage drinking by any means, but at least think of a better way to crackdown on it. Don't let us over age (posh)cider drinkers suffer for it!

Catch you all next time

-Reece Wilson, the town Drunk

Let's talk Shakespeare (and when I say talk, I mean complain about...)

According to Wikipedia, no-one knows when William Shakespeare was born, further enforcing my idea that he is one of the many spawns of Satan.

If you have ever studied English,( which you must have because we've all been to school at some point in our lives... although if not, haven't you got some manual labour to be getting on with?) you'll have most likely faced the wrath of Shakespeare be it Romeo & Juliet (probably the most bearable of his workings),Macbeth or even Hamlet(Witney college A2 English Lang & Lit put ya' hands up!).

While there is certainly nothing wrong with the basic storyline in each respective play,there is a lot wrong with everything else. For example...

.How he manipulated words just so they could fit in with his style of writing
.How he insisted on making every last line overly complicated
.How he could never quite decide how his characters behave
.How he decide not to use speech marks (I suppose that's ok because they're plays but I'm onto something here.)

Now, I wouldn't have much of a problem with this, if it wasn't for teachers worshipping this, considering his work to be the best work of literature ever created.JUST BECAUSE HE WAS THE FIRST PERSON TO TRY THESE THINGS DOESN'T MAKE IT THE BEST! These techniques were put here for people to expand and improve upon, not to just stare at for the next 500 years remarking how wonderful it all is. And then, your teacher will make you slog through every English lesson, trying to decode what Shakespeare was trying to say when he used the word "hello". (And I'm not even exaggerating, my English lecturer actually set this a question once...)

And if you tried to use any of Shakespeare's techniques in your own work, you'd just get shunned by your teacher for having a rubbish,nonsensical bit of writing.

You can try and point out Shakespeare's flaws to your Teacher but they are too busy sucking off his memory to listen.

You see, Shakespeare's work is like TV charity events; they try to say they make a difference when really they're not getting anywhere fast,you're not getting anywhere fast and they're both wallowing in self-indulgence.


Well that was a nice first Blog post...see you next time ;)

-Reece Wilson-Prince of Denmark

OM-ROFLMAO-G!!! A BLOG?!

Yes people of the internet, I have started a blog. around about a million years too late but hey. I know tweeting is all the rage these days but to be honest I'm not a complete bell end so I refuse to join something where I essentially stalk celebrities without any consequences. Sorry but I feel there is more to life than that...like sitting alone in my room venting my feelings onto an internet page that only 3 people will read...one of them me...

But anyway, I hope to regularly use this, that way I wont keep all the aggression inside my head, and I can let it out into t'internet. I plan to talk about issues that I actually care about, aswell as the odd film or game review and even some exclusive looks at any comics I decide to make between now and the time I forget about this page.

So that's that for now, and I'll see you whenever I decide to update it.

Cheerio-

Reece Wilson