ModNation Racers is a beautiful, fast-paced take on the kart-racing genre. Taking away much of the luck of Mario Kart, it adds a much-needed hardcore element to this sort of racing game. But it also brings loading times... long, long loading times.

People are mentioning this in reviews, but we wanted to show just how long it takes to get from the home screen to an actual race. Keep in mind that before we shot this video, we had installed the game to the hard drive.

The loading times in the game are incredibly annoying, and they grind the experience to a halt. Not only does it happen before races, it occurs even when simply exploring the content-creation tools. The review code given to us wasn't from a retail copy of the game, but after looking through the notes there is no mention of loading times being improved for launch; odds are this is how the game will act for everyone else.

We'll have a full review of the title before its release, but this is one aspect of the game that needs to be pointed out. Load times this long really hurt the experience of playing the game, especially one that seems like it would be perfect for a few quick races here and there. Disappointing.