LittleBigPlanet Karting makes the leap from platforming adventure to quirky cartoon racing, with a customarily advanced modding kit which begs the question: what else can it build?

LittleBigPlanet Karting is the result of a joint effort between the LittleBigPlanet team and the creators of ModNation Racers (Vita). It's interesting this new PS3 title will be a new direction for LittleBigPlanet, rather bringing Modnation Racers back to the PS3. Perhaps this is in part due to the lukewarm reception which Modnation Racers: Road Trip received on the Vita, alongside the enormous strength of the LittleBigPlanet branding.

The major change for LittleBigPlanet fans is that the default action for LittleBigPlanet Karting will be into the screen with a full 3D environment, rather than the side view which predicated most LittleBigPlanet 2 user content. Not only that, but LittleBigPlanet Karting promises modding tools which can not only edit and create tracks, but which can be used to alter the rules of racing itself.

It will be interesting to see how far this extends. When LittleBigPlanet 2 (PS3) appeared, the premise was that the toolkit provided was so flexible that it would be possible to create nearly any kind of game with it. Theoretically it could even have been used to create a Kart racer, albeit top-down. Whatever happens it will surely play host to a wealth of creativity and of course all the additional content created and shared by players will be made available to all other users online.

For the actual racing, LittleBigPlanet Karting will offer local split screen or online modes for multiplayer, with a range of races, arena battles, objective-based missions and even mini-games.

LittleBigPlanet Karting is currently planned for release on Playstation 3 during 2012.