[PS3] ModNation Racers

[Insanecyclone]

My friend made the worlds greatest track

Nice.

Too bad I can't invite you to my world because of "HURR DURR FINAL RELEASE ONLY" bullshit.

This is supposed to be a beta not a fucking demo, we're supposed to test mostly everything out. Hopefully they fix it by jan 10 when it stops.

[Ragnell]

Nice.

Too bad I can't invite you to my world because of "HURR DURR FINAL RELEASE ONLY" bullshit.

This is supposed to be a beta not a fucking demo, we're supposed to test mostly everything out. Hopefully they fix it by jan 10 when it stops.

that and the fucking SSSSSSSSSSSSUPER lag servers, I had to reboot twice because of the shit kept freezing on me

[Mooshywooshy]

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y19.../MODNATION.jpg
Woo

[Tomiko]

lol that's awesome

[Kaisha]

Jesus christ, first impressions are is that this will finally be the "Mario Kart" killer (in terms of reviews, since I highly doubt this would ever outsell Mario Kart itself). I hope they last, although a lot of it will depend on how customizable tracks are (have yet to see anything with corkscrews or loop-de-loops, going to find out soon), and whether or not the develops will tighten the steering up, as it feels sluggish currently and lacks any analog input at all, it's completely digital from what I'm feeling.

And for kicks they should include SIXAXIS motion controls. If Nintendo can make it work, so can they.

[EDIT] They really need to do something about the load times in this game. For something that's running fully off the HD, they're atrocious, especially compared to every other racing game out there that are more visually demanding than this.

For instance, this is what I got when going to play an online match on a 5400rpm HD:
- 14 seconds to load a lobby screen of you and the players' vehicles (to which the game then streams the other player's vehicles/models in while waiting on the match to start)
- 35 seconds to load the map
- 31 seconds to return to the game's hub after the race results screen ends

That's way too much fucking loading in general, it better be fixed drastically come the retail product.

Liking that you're allowed to use a shitload of stickers in the game at any rate.

[Zelas]

[EDIT] They really need to do something about the load times in this game. For something that's running fully off the HD, they're atrocious, especially compared to every other racing game out there that are more visually demanding than this.

For instance, this is what I got when going to play an online match on a 5400rpm HD:
- 14 seconds to load a lobby screen of you and the players' vehicles (to which the game then streams the other player's vehicles/models in while waiting on the match to start)
- 35 seconds to load the map
- 31 seconds to return to the game's hub after the race results screen ends

That's way too much fucking loading in general, it better be fixed drastically come the retail product.

Liking that you're allowed to use a shitload of stickers in the game at any rate.

Yeah thats my only true gripe with the game so far. The random disconnects dont make it any more bearable either.

[Insanecyclone]

In conclusion it's a nice game but horrible beta phase for it.

[Mooshywooshy]

Im usually ok with these customization things, but this track editor makes me want to blow my brains out its so confusing.

Its like they simplified everything down to the point where its harder to do anything that isnt 'lay track, autopopulate'

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y19...NATION-1-1.jpg

[Shojin]

New trailer:

New stuff added looks awesome.

There has been a series of improvements made to the game and the feedback from the beta testers has really help United Front to make a stronger product. So thanks to everyone who took part.

From the comments, so hoping they fixed the frame tearing/frame rate drops. Looking forward to it, although I would love it if they did decide to release it as a PSN download also.

[Kaisha]

Hope they'll release a demo. Not going near this with a 10ft pole unless the problems I had with the beta (mentioned earlier in this thread) were fixed, namely, the oversensitive steering and the horrendous load times.

The thing has potential to be a Mario Kart killer if they gave further control on the level editor come the final retail release.
(I would kill to be able to chew away at parts of the road to make pit drops and what not, or produce corkscrews/loop-de-loops)

[Shojin]

I would just like them to give alternate camera views, I want it to pull back over the head a bit so I can see the track in front of me properly.

[Shojin]

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2010/...s-and-box-art/

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2721/...367d1a4609.jpg

If you’ve been keeping up with the Blog or recent preview coverage, you know ModNation Racers is continuing the Play, Create and Share movement allowing both PS3 and PSP owners to design their own racers, karts and best of all, custom tracks! Creations can then be raced with friends (four-player split-screen confirmed!) and uploaded to the rest of the PlayStation Network! But the question is:

When will it hit store shelves?

Well it’s official! ModNation Racers on both PS3 and PSP releases May 25! On top of this, we kick off our official pre-order program today with participating retailers.

ModNation Racers Art 1

That’s right! Ratchet and Clank, Nathan Drake, and Kratos have officially been Mod’ed! Depending on where you pre-order your copy, you’ll get to race with one of your favorite characters.

ModNation Racers Kratos Racing

Pre-order from GameStop and score Kratos and his Kart of Chaos!

ModNation Racers Ratchet Racing

Pre-order from Amazon and race as Ratchet or Clank!

ModNation Racers Nathan Drake Racing

Pre-order from Best Buy and score Nathan Drake and his Jungle Jeep!

On top of this, each pre-order gets an additional BONUS Mystery Mod and Kart package that include not just a special Mod and Kart, but additional accessories that you can use to make your own creations!

ModNation Racers DLC 1 ModNation Racers DLC 2

ModNation Racers DLC 3 ModNation Racers DLC 4

Four possibilities in total, and just like a vinyl figure you buy in stores, you won’t know which one you get until you download it and see for yourself. Wondering what they could be? We will reveal them soon enough! Just look for a future post right here on the Blog.

So there you go! Pre-order today and you might be racing with your favorite PlayStation character! To make sure you know which box to grab on May 25, here is a sneak peek at our packfront!

Releasing May 25th.

Pre-order bonuses include Kratos customization with special kart. Same with Nathan Drake from Uncharted and same for Ratchet from Ratchet and Clank.

EDIT: More pics if you click the link.

[Shojin]

Sorry for double post but this is a very good interview with the producer of the game.

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/03/15/in...rs-dan-sochan/

Joystiq: What's new about the code we're seeing today at GDC?
Dan Sochan, producer, ModNation Racers: There's the four-player split-screen, two-player online split-screen, and we've also announced and have been showing off more of the single player career. We kept the story of the single player career mode quite light. At its core, it's still a racing game, so we didn't want to complicate it with you saving the world. The story is you're this young racer who goes into this league, the ModNation Racing Championship, and you're basically going from a nobody to take on the ultimate champion. Through the way you have also have a bit of an influence. It has some elements of Pleasantville, where everyone tends to be a little bit more drab with the colors they choose for their characters and karts, and you influence them by being very creative. So all of a sudden everyone wants to have bright, vibrant colors and doing very elaborate decorating of themselves and their karts, and it's narrated through two characters: Biff and Gary, who offer comic relief through the game.

How does progression work in the single player campaign? Do you unlock creation tools in that mode, akin to LittleBigPlanet?
Yes, definitely there will be a certain number of unlockables you'll get through the career, but we tried not to make it exclusively through the career. We didn't want to pigeonhole people and force them to play that way. So you'll also get more unlocks by publishing, sharing, downloading, voting, basically being a participant in the community, which is kind of cool.

Four-player split-screen has only been recently introduced. How long ago was that feature planned?
It's something we'd always hoped for. We got a lot of feedback from the public beta; this is something people really, really wanted. So, we upped the priority on it and dedicated a core number of our programmers just to focus on optimizations and what they could do. So it's come online in the past month, month and a half, and it's all we're playing in the office nowadays. Lots, and lots of trash talk.

So split-screen multiplayer can be attributed to the public beta. What else did the team focus on and learn from the public beta?
It was great, we were really happy to see it. We had 100,000 people in for both the North American and European beta. I think we logged somewhere between 500 and 1000 unique bugs, and we got tons of great feedback. We listened to all the feedback. We implemented some of the smaller ones we could, took some of the bigger improvements that people wanted. People wanted more control over the cameras, so we added camera controls so you can choose how zoomed in you are. That's something people are happy about to see we got that in. And some other things, we'd consider for future versions of the title.

One of the largest complaints from the beta were the long load times. Has that issue been addressed?
It's something we'd always planned on addressing. We didn't want to leave it as-is, but we needed to get the public beta out so we could test the online features. The North American servers were down for the first day or two, but by the end they were quite stable. I don't think we had any servers go down at all for the European public beta at all. It was great for giving us all that online server knowledge, but we were not where we wanted to be with load times and frame rate, and those have both made tons and tons of improvements.

The ModNation Racers beta was rather restricted. Are there any plans to release a more available public demo closer to the game's launch?
That's something we're investigating, and we'll probably have more information on that in the next month or so.

The big news at GDC this year was the Move controller. Is that something ModNation Racers might feature in some way?
It's something we're really excited about. We realized we wanted to focus on the core racing for this part of the game with the SIXAXIS controller, but we do want to investigate it for the future. We just see a lot of cool ways of implementing it. Grabbing the terrain with the motion controller and literally pulling it up and stretching it out to make mountains, or push it in with the Z-axis to cut in and make water and ravines. And then, giving a spray painting job to your car itself. Or moving around decals on your character. There's a lot of fun implementations.

You mentioned a lot of ways of implementing motion into creation, but what about racing? You couldn't use it like a wheel, or else your hands would cover the orb.
We'll have to play with it and see. Other than a full proper wheel, I haven't seen a lot of good implementations of racing games using motion controllers or things like that. We'll definitely look into it: if it's good, we'll put it in, if it's not, we'll focus more on the creation side.

Are there any plans to implement any PlayStation Home connectivity?
Yes, we will be doing some integration into PlayStation Home, and we'll be talking a little more about that in about a month or so.

tl;dr:

- 4 player local splitscreen added
- 2 player splitscreen online mode
- Frame rate and long loading issues fixed
- More camera control allowing you to zoom out (THANK YOU)
- Possible use with Playstation Move for creating tracks and decorations like spray paint
- Single player campaign mode will have light focus but will get you some unlocks

[Qalbert]

picture of the preorder bonuses, if you have one shojin it didn't load
http://cache-03.gawkerassets.com/ass..._modnation.jpg

[Shojin]

Yeah I left it out

Also some more info on the PSP version in the Joystiq interview. Stuff like getting exclusive unlocks on PSP version for having both PS3 and PSP versions

[Kaisha]

Good to hear about the loading fixed, along with frame-rate (imagine if they didn't fix the FPS and then you tried to play it 4 player splitscreen).

No word on the over-touchy steering though?

[Shojin]

lol

[Mooshywooshy]

Do not want unless they fixed the camera in the kart creation, toooo hard trying to make anything worth looking at with a camera that is at a 53 degree angle and 20 feet away from the car.

[Kaisha]

Kevin coughing the water out at the end makes it for me.

[6souls]

We hope you enjoyed the April episode of Qore, featuring in-depth coverage of God of War III, Split/Second and 3D Dot Game Heroes.

If you are a Qore annual subscriber or purchaser of the April episode, we want to let you know about a late addition to Episode 23's Download Center: ModNation Racers PSP Demo.

Qore subscribers were invited to the PS3 game Beta last year, and starting on April 22, you'll also get a chance to play the upcoming PSP demo version.

Visit the Download Center in the April episode of Qore after this week's PlayStation Store Update for early access to the ModNation Racers PSP demo, which lets you test drive two full tracks from the game and give the track creator a spin.

And, look for more exclusive downloads in next month's May episode of Qore, featuring Prince of Persia: Forgotten Sands, UFC Undisputed 2010 with Jens Pulver, and an insider's look at upcoming additions to PlayStation Home.

Look for Episode 24 to hit the PlayStation Store on May 11.

http://blog.us.playstation.com