I guess I'm a skeptic, but I don't necessarily agree. I mean, Photoshop is available with primitive shapes and you don't see people going nuts creating stuff with that on a whim.
That's because they don't want to! I don'tknow anyone who wants to create random art with primitive shapes. Whereas in MNR, people are wanting to create a game experience or character. The problem with MNR's interface is when people do want to create something, they find themselves wrestling with the UI, which will either see them persevere and become proficient, or more likely throw in the towel. With a more naturalised mouse interface, the only limit will be the user's command of the toolset, and not their ability to remember 63 different button combinations.
Anyone got a list of weapons?
There are four. You run over a crate and get a random weapon at level one. Hit another crate and it powers up to level 2, and third crate gets you to power 3. You can turn any weapon into a drop-behind mine. The weapons are, off the top of my head and I only played it a bit, Rockets (progress to homing missiles and missile swarm), Mines (I think they just progress to more). Blue swirly thing, and turbo boost. Tier three turbo boost becomes a warp tunnel, jumping you forwards in the track, but it also remains open a little while that other racers can follow in behind you.
Okay, that wasn't much use. I'm sure IGN or somesuch offers a proper breakdown!
Can you create new weapons?
Nope.
Can you modify how weapons are?
You can include.exlude them. I don't know if that's possible per weapon or justa global on/off.
Any car mods (speed, turning abilities, acceleration, spin out time, etc)?
Nope. It's all cosmetic, which is a bit of a shortcoming. Every kart plays exactly the same way.
Do different karts of players have different skills?
Nope.
Powerslide begins with a hop I think, but I don't know if you can hop over obstacles at all. At this point I'd say probably no.
Can you add collectables, like coins, in your mods to increase speed?
I don't think so. You get boost/shield energy from powersliding and hang-time. I don't think there are any collectables.
Anything special about the kart racing? (Looked like a vanilla kart game in terms of racing from videos I have seen).
It's vanilla racing, without so much as a toffee swirl or a wafer. The mechanic felt good, and the powerslide is very controllable and satisfying, but the gameplay mechanic, at least in the demo, was rather shallow. However there are triggerable events on track (not available in the demo) so you could arrange some better interactivity, but I'm not sure to what extent.
I have seen others on other forums say rubber banding is bad and the AI is very cheap on later chapters. Also mixed feedback on if this is a tight skilled racer or a loose, sliding racer. It looks fast which can obscure the driving model by viewing, especially if it has strong rubberband or cheat for AI.
The demo on Hard had the typical 'enemy blasts you with powerful weapons and whizzes by' feature, but I think that's expected for this genre and is the main longevity contributor to the solo campaign, where you have to play a track lots of times before you get your lucky win. Otherwise it'd be over in 2 hours!
FTR, I won't be getting it. It didn't click with my buddies. I suppose part of that problem is one is a karting noob while I'm pretty competant after lots of PS1 days karting. If you can't cope with powersliding, you'll always be pulling up the rear meaning zero competition. Plus he can only race in-car view.
