remember i got these from IGN, and i timed the 2 you mentioned

i got the same as the first one 54sec, but for the 2nd one i got 23sec so that one is wrong i think

Load times still feel long to me. But it doesn't detract from enjoying the game too much.

Mods are great, Karts are cool. It's a neat online community I think.

Strange, the patch actually increased the loading times for Kotaku all around

http://kotaku.com/5606519/modnation-racers-patch-made-my-load-times-longer

But what about the thing I really care about-- did they add an easier difficulty?

Easier? Really? I found it a breath of fresh air that you don't get those lame races like in other kart games, but that the opposition actually does what real players do as well (harrass you constantly and relentlessly when they can)

You can call me bad at the game or whatever, but when it's the third race of the career you should be able to at least finish it.  I tried for well more than an hour and I just couldn't get past it.  The previous two races I easily got first and all the extra little achievements but the third I just couldn't do.

I would be in first for the entire race without a problem but come the end of the final lap, the other racers just completely unload on me...and there's not a lot I can do against that.  I can defend the first few attacks but when you have every other racer using their level 3 attack on you it just sucks.

I'm all for a good hard game but MNR just did it wrong.  If they looked at a game that did hard well like Demon's Soul, it's hard but you feel like you have a chance and you died because you did something wrong.  Instead, you lose and you feel like it's becase the AI was cheap.  That sucks.

Also, I'm not sure the game knew who it was trying to cater to.  The difficulty is just extremely hard core but the art style screams casual and we want to be like Little Big Planet.

I really hope the patch added the casual difficulty because then I can actually get into the game without getting angry at the cheap AI.  If I can then ease into the game, I'm encouraged to get better.  As it stands now I can't get past the third race and I just assume I'll get destroyed online so what's the point of even trying?

This patch added "Casual" difficulty Twesterm.

I'm definitely not calling you a bad gamer, as I'm just an average gamer in all genres. I didn't experience that much difficulty early on to be honest. The last championship was brutal though and the one before that had some rather spicy tracks too, but that's the end, so that's supposed to be like that imho :p

But I hope you do enjoy the game now that it has an easier setting. There are some jewels in those tracks imho :)