In just a few short days ModNation Racers: Road Trip will be hitting the store shelves alongside the release of the much-anticipated PlayStation Vita! Our team at San Diego Studio has worked very hard to produce what we think is the best portable kart racing game on the market. We’ve added many new features (see below) to the already highly acclaimed ModNation Racers franchise and we are extremely excited to finally get them into the hands of gamers everywhere.

Sure, it may sound a bit silly to the un-initiated but the Mod, Karts, and Tracks YOU create become a small extension of yourself. You experience a sense of e-pride (just made that word up) similar to whipping out your wallet to show pictures of your gorgeous wife and kids anyone who will listen. You’ll notice a grin on your face and a slight swell in your heart (admit it or not) the first time you hand your Vita and ModNation Racers: Road Trip to a friend as they “ooh and ahhhh” at YOUR “genius” creations. Trust me, you will hear at least one of the following comments…

1. YOU did that?
2. How did YOU do that?
3. Make me! Make me!
4. Do I know you?
5. Let me try
6. Ding!, fries are done.
or quite possibly…
7. Wow, I really like your Mod! … Are you single?

We hope you’ll agree the kart racing experience in ModNation Racers: Road Trip is second to none. Perfectly tuned racing physics and spectacular graphics add to the intense yet intuitive racing. With well over 500,000 tracks to race you’ll be busy until the next millennium going through them all. We know, we counted.
So if you are a fan of ModNation Racers, the Play Create Share family, or just kart racing in general we know you will enjoy ModNation Racers: Road Trip. If you haven’t made the leap into this great game and even greater community of players then we have just one suggestion – Try it – you’ll be hooked for life!

ModNation Racers Road Trip: Tutorials Week 2

Track building has come a long way since using mom’s kitchen utensils to scrape out your course in the dirt. We’ve got some new-fangled track creating tools in ModNation Racers: Road Trip and these videos will help you get acquainted with the ins-n-outs of creating those tracks of your dreams!

Track Editing

Terrain Editing

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Remember that recent big hit movie? …the one with the buildings that were all upside-down, catawampus, and kcabwards?… Yes exactly! THAT movie! Well, we knew from ModNation Racers: Road Trip‘s inception (cough) our track creators wanted even more flexibility (and potential insanity) in their track creating process.

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When I first started dating my wonderful wife, her mother asked how I was at playing board games. Puzzled (*chuckle*) my wife answered “why”? Come to find out you can tell a lot about one’s character from playing board games and gauging their reactions/attitudes to the games’ twists and turns. This somehow predicts their “potential spousal aptitude.” I did not know that. Yippee!

• Land on blue…you win! (good luck)
• Roll an eight…you lose! (bad luck)
• Flip a card…”move back two spaces”…start over! (no luck at all)

Pure luck dictating the outcome of a game? Narts to that!

Needless to say I’m not a fan of board games but I do now have a wonderful wife and kids and “a” mother-in-law. Who cares, Mark? (Point taken, I’ll move on.)

So here are but a few of the many reasons I enjoy playing the fun (and FAIR!) ModNation Racers: Road Trip. Less luck, more skill!

Choosable Weapons: Weapon classes are distinguished by their item pod color. This means I get to choose what weapons I want to use when and where I want to use them. If I find it necessary I can also “cash in” any weapon I posses to convert into a boost with a simple touch of my weapon icon. Cha-ching! That was me coming from out of nowhere!

Personalized/Balanced Matchmaking: With my frail ego, the last thing I need is to compete against players soooooo much better than me that I get chills from the winds they produce whizzing by me. ModNation Racers: Road Trip’s matchmaking system searches for those closest to my (we’ll call it) ability to place me in some winnable heats. I love that!

Defensible Weapons: YES! Not only will I receive audible clues (can be toggled off) of incoming attacks, but I’ll have the advantage of a visible “lock-on” reticule over my mod’s icon on the status bar, helping me time my protective shield. This means on my long plane flights I’ll finally have a fighting chance to defend myself in races. Trust me, the person sitting next to you in coach does NOT want to hear the increasing, whirling, crescendo of your warning tone. Go figure. (They must be board game lovers.)

Amnesty Shield: Have you ever experienced that gut feeling that, right as you’re about to let loose your level-three hydras, the kart behind you is about to do the same thing to you? Problem solved! The new Amnesty Shield feature protects you from any similar weapon launched from an opponent until your devastation has been imposed. Pretty fair I say.

Refined/Controlled Drifting And Braking: I like my racing straight up. Literally. That’s how I roll. Some enjoy “snaking” or frenetically “zig-zagging” down the track to build up their boost meter. ModNation Racers: Road Trip refinements allow much more controlled, subtle yet powerful drifting. This means I’ll always be moving forward on the track instead of constantly battling the under and over-steering issue present in most racing games. I think you will notice and enjoy the difference, too.

Race Assist: Although I may not have a need for racing assistance, it’s good to know it’s there for others to use. I know my mother-in-law is going to need all the help she can get when I deliver her a new Vita and ModNation Racers: Road Trip for her upcoming birthday. I’ll show you, “mom”! Mwahahaha!

Have a great week everyone!

Mark

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I wanted to give the fingers of the talented blog managers a break this week so that I could talk about the robust online features in ModNation Racers: Road Trip. The team here in San Diego created an impressive list of online functionality to take advantage of the WiFi/3G and GPS functionality. This game is intended to let you take advantage of your road trips—whether they’re across the country, to another state or just traveling between home and work or school. More importantly, ModNation Racers: Road Trip was designed to work around your schedule and let you compete with your friends whenever (and wherever) you want.

1. Competitive Localised Leaderboards

When a gamer who has opted to “Use Location Data” posts a lap time to the Leaderboards, that time is connected to their current location. Gamers can personalise their location names (i.e., My Home, My Work, Mark’s House Where I Always Win, etc.) for easy reference. These times become part of the Local Leaderboards which gamers can use to compete in a fun arcade-style atmosphere.

Gamers can also select one of their saved locations and view other competitors’ times that were earned nearby. For example, if I earn a great time on “Construction Mayhem” while at “Mark’s House,” I can check my rank versus other gamers’ local times and more importantly, my friends… including Mark. The game would find the 8, 24 or 48 closest gamers to “Mark’s House” who posted local times for “Construction Mayhem.” This means you’ll have an ever-expanding level of challenge through asynchronous competition to play instantly when and where you want!

2. Continual Match-Making, Ghosts and Time Trials

Where ModNation Racers for the PS3 automatically matches gamers against one of the most difficult lap times in the community, ModNation Racers: Road Trip instead matches you against other gamers’ Ghosts who have set times which are competitive to yours. This continual match-making and the shorter play time of a single lap competition makes for a fun and constantly challenging online gaming experience. For those of us who are competitive with our friends, we can select a filter to race against friends’ ghosts.

An option on the Vita even allows you to receive a push notification whenever your time is beat or to boast to your friends when you beat theirs.

3. Travel Points: Time For A Road Trip… No Really…Seriously, get in your car, train or bus now.

The first time a gamer checks-in with Mod Explorer the game will recognise their location. Every time a gamer checks-in at any location after that they will earn Travel Points based on the distance from their last check-in. Individual gamers will then unlock additional parts for Track Studio when they reach certain amounts of Travel Points. There will also be an in-game leaderboard ranking gamers by the amount of Travel Points they have earned.

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If you’re anything like me, you’ll be spending a lot more time enjoying this fun new feature than you would ever have expected. The Mod Postcards feature is found in the “Favourites” section of the Creation Station and for a good reason – you’ll be coming back to it over and over (and more than likely yet again).

1. Postcard Image

The first thing you’ll be asked to do is either load an image or take a photo. “Take a photo” is fairly straightforward. Using either the PlayStation Vita’s front or rear camera you’ll frame your shot using the front touch screen’s viewfinder. You’ll notice a miniature Tag and his Kart superimposed into the centre of the display awaiting the click of the shutter. Simply touch the “Take Pic” icon in the top left corner to take the picture.

The second option is “load a photo”. Trust me when I say this makes things even more interesting. Load any image you have downloaded onto your Vita as the background of your Mod Postcard or utilize Vita’s built-in web browser and you’ll have access to all the images you could hope for via the web.

2. Mod / Kart Poses

The next step asks you to tap on the Mod or Kart and thus begins the fun. Use your fingers to move, pinch, push, pull, squeeze and rotate Tag or his Kart to your desired size and position in the photo. You will also have numerous options for your chosen Mod’s expression as well as pose. Just a press of the save icon (pencil writing to disc) button and voila!!!… Your very own Mod Postcard! Oh, it doesn’t stop there – remember the two million-plus creations that you and the ModNation community have created so far?… YEP, you’ll have access to ALL of those Mods and Karts to use in your ModNation photo masterpieces. Think about the possibilities. Ba-BAM! That was your mind being blown right? Yeah, I thought so!

3. Share Your Postcards

With Vita’s connectivity you have the ability to link to your Facebook account and publish your Mod Postcards for all your friends and family to see! Hmmmmm… can’t wait to see what the ModNation “paparazzi” come up with. This ought to be fun!

Have a great week everyone!

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