ModNation Racers -- General Info and Discussion

I love the way he counts the initial loading of the game into the time it takes to get into a race. Once he clicked race, it took roughly 40 seconds. Not a huge deal IMO.
 
[quote name='SEH']Not sure why the load times are that big of a deal. It's not like you're sitting there for ten minutes waiting for a track to load. It takes 45-60 seconds, big deal. The game has a shit ton of custom content to load, what do you expect? While the game's loading take your ADD meds.[/QUOTE]

if its anything like how it was in the beta then it is a big deal. the game had long loads at alot of different places even once you get online and go to start up a game there was a monstrous load for setting things up , waiting for people to join and then or the game to load so you could finally race.

that was the first time in a long time id ever been frustrated with loads in a this gen game the loads for the demo were worse than loads for a tiger woods golf game. that was something that should have been addressed before it shipped out and like someone mentioned hopefully it will be fixed by an update or something or maybe let people install it to their ps3.
 
Load times don't seem like a big deal to me. Its more that the whole game just seems... generic. Maybe that's not the right word for it, but there's some vibe that's making me not like it very much despite that the idea is cool.

How's Sega Allstars racing? I realized how badly I want to play a kart racer right now.
 
[quote name='lokizz']if its anything like how it was in the beta then it is a big deal. the game had long loads at alot of different places even once you get online and go to start up a game there was a monstrous load for setting things up , waiting for people to join and then or the game to load so you could finally race.

that was the first time in a long time id ever been frustrated with loads in a this gen game the loads for the demo were worse than loads for a tiger woods golf game. that was something that should have been addressed before it shipped out and like someone mentioned hopefully it will be fixed by an update or something or maybe let people install it to their ps3.[/QUOTE]

I was in the beta, the load times didn't bother me one bit. Like I said, the game is mostly made up of custom content, of course it's gonna take awhile to load it all up. I'm not sure what people were expecting.
 
With the number of decent reviews the game has received, I don't think it is as big an issue as everyone is making it out to be.
 
[quote name='SuperPhillip']I think going for lap times with constant loading will be annoying to trophy whores.

I'm still interested in the game.[/QUOTE]

The load times only occur with the custom content; I believe it was the IGN review that stated that once a track has loaded, you don't have to reload between races, so there should be no issue with going for lap times... unless you're switching tracks literally between every attempt. :lol:
 
excerpt from an ign interview with a guy that made modnation

IGN: What's the experience been like reading reviews for the game, now that they're starting to come out. Has anything surprised you?

Dan Sochan: For the most part we've been really happy. We've seen review scores that have been quite high, lots of 9's, which is great. We've seen some comments about the load times, which is something we're aware of. It's something we're working on. It wasn't an oversight on our part at all. The way that our technology was built we were able to keep file sizes really, really small for transfer times of less than a second or a second and a half. We didn't want it to be so that you and I go online and you want to try a track I've built that's 50MB and then have you have wait five minutes to download it. That immediately became an obstacle in sharing so we created a file system where everything is built dynamically and on the fly. Everything is essentially a series of coordinates to things that are saved. The challenge with that is we're building an entire world, an entire character, an entire kart, and 12 characters online, all on the fly. There's a lot of compositing that happens with the stickers and all the different parts. Because of that, there are longer load times, but that's something we're working on for one of our first patches, to improve that and get that down significantly.
 
Why, oh why, does this game have to come out on the same day as UFC 2010? I could get it later, but the Amazon pre-order bonuses and $10 credit... augh.
 
That IGN interview's a good read - thanks! Glad to read they've already got a patch in the works to reduce the load times - that'll help quiet what seems to be the only complaint about what otherwise looks to be a totally awesome game. :applause:

Now... how about putting out a PS3 demo for Daddy next Tuesday while you're at it, hmmm?
 
[quote name='Hilarity']That IGN interview's a good read - thanks! Glad to read they've already got a patch in the works to reduce the load times - that'll help quiet what seems to be the only complaint about what otherwise looks to be a totally awesome game. :applause:

Now... how about putting out a PS3 demo for Daddy next Tuesday while you're at it, hmmm?[/QUOTE]

they listened to you: http://blog.us.playstation.com/2010/05/14/modnation-racers-ps3-demo-hits-psn-may-18th/
 
Who downloaded the demo? I must say, it's actually pretty sick. I liked getting to try the track creator, and it was quite easy to use. I wish we could race on our created tracks, or at least more than one track.

But I can't wait for next week. Might actually go out and buy this the day it comes out.
 
I was really waiting to try the demo, got the game pre-ordered from Amazon. My initial impression is ok. Absolutely hate the radio chatter, ultra lame. With such a cool art style the announcers horrible humor seems completely crow bared in. Like it was aimed at annoying as fuck 8 year olds. Super long load times like has been mentioned. I'm hoping it will grow on me.
 
[quote name='Viva Las Vegas']I was really waiting to try the demo, got the game pre-ordered from Amazon. My initial impression is ok. Absolutely hate the radio chatter, ultra lame. With such a cool art style the announcers horrible humor seems completely crow bared in. Like it was aimed at annoying as fuck 8 year olds. Super long load times like has been mentioned. I'm hoping it will grow on me.[/QUOTE]

I think the load times were fine, actually much better than LBP but im sure when we go online it will change for the worse. Those announcers do suck, good thing we can turn them down in the options. I thought I read we were goning to be able to use custom soundtracks though. The track editor is pretty fun and easy to use which was my big concern.
 
I just played for about an hour. My feelings are... mixed.

The controls feel really loose, but once you get adjusted, they're serviceable. The AI is really, REALLY cheap on any difficulty above easy. Before anyone says, "That's how kart racers are", I have owned every Mario Kart game except for the GBA version and have finished 1st on all the hardest difficulties. But in this one, it's night impossible to win, even on medium. I'd often finish 2nd or 3rd, but inevitably, I'd be knocked out of 1st at the last second 80% of the time.

The worst part- and I hope I can fix this in the options- is that the game is painful to play. I mean it is literally physically painful. You use R2 to accelerate and hold X to drift. This puts your right hand in a very uncomfortable position.

I played for an hour, but I couldn't take any more. My right hand started cramping up after 10-15 minutes. I know that a lot of 360 racing games use the right trigger to accelerate, and it feels good. But not here. 20 minutes after I stopped playing, my fingers and the back of my hand still ache.

I pray to Allah that there are customizable controls in this game. Otherwise, sadly, I will have to cancel my pre-order. If it physically hurts to play the game, there's no sense in buying it.

All that aside, the core gameplay is REALLY good. If the controls are customizable, the game could play almost as well as the Mario Kart games and, with the customization options, could be even better, possibly. Speaking of which, the editing functions for tracks and cars are very easy to use; much easier than customizing things on LBP.

Overall, as I have said- if the controls can be changed, this will be a very good game. If not, it quite literally hurts to much to play. :( I really hope there are customizable controls, because I have been looking forward to this game for months.
 
[quote name='Matt Young']I just played for about an hour. My feelings are... mixed.

The controls feel really loose, but once you get adjusted, they're serviceable. The AI is really, REALLY cheap on any difficulty above easy. Before anyone says, "That's how kart racers are", I have owned every Mario Kart game except for the GBA version and have finished 1st on all the hardest difficulties. But in this one, it's night impossible to win, even on medium. I'd often finish 2nd or 3rd, but inevitably, I'd be knocked out of 1st at the last second 80% of the time.

The worst part- and I hope I can fix this in the options- is that the game is painful to play. I mean it is literally physically painful. You use R2 to accelerate and hold X to drift. This puts your right hand in a very uncomfortable position.

I played for an hour, but I couldn't take any more. My right hand started cramping up after 10-15 minutes. I know that a lot of 360 racing games use the right trigger to accelerate, and it feels good. But not here. 20 minutes after I stopped playing, my fingers and the back of my hand still ache.

I pray to Allah that there are customizable controls in this game. Otherwise, sadly, I will have to cancel my pre-order. If it physically hurts to play the game, there's no sense in buying it.

All that aside, the core gameplay is REALLY good. If the controls are customizable, the game could play almost as well as the Mario Kart games and, with the customization options, could be even better, possibly. Speaking of which, the editing functions for tracks and cars are very easy to use; much easier than customizing things on LBP.

Overall, as I have said- if the controls can be changed, this will be a very good game. If not, it quite literally hurts to much to play. :( I really hope there are customizable controls, because I have been looking forward to this game for months.[/QUOTE]


Get good enough at drifting so you can drift on every turn. Also, USE YOUR SHIELD TO BLOCK ATTACKS. When you use the shield, hold it down all the way and don't let go until the attack finishes. At first I thought it was challenging, but the game really isn't that hard once you master the controls. I play on hard, both pure/action racing, with 11 CPUs. I finish in 1st abut 66% of the time. Also, there are some things that you have to always do to increase your chances of winning, just like mario kart. I've played the demo track enough to know that you ALWAYS do a 720 on the last jump before the finish line. Also, if you're not side-swiping people when you get the chance, you need to practice at doing that. it's not that you should do it all the time, but when you an EASY opportunity to, then do it as it boost your meter a little and screws the computer.

The gameplay in this game is amazing and easy once you practice at it. People are going to cry because it's not mario kart and they can adapt to new controls. It's like the samething as the people who hate other shooters like Killzone 2 because it doesn't have MW2 controls even though all you need to do is practice and get better. This is going to be my favorite game with RDR.
 
The problem with the shield is that a full bar drains in about 3.5 seconds. If you put up your shield as soon as the notification of a weapon pops up, it will drain before you get hit. You have to time it right. I do drift on every turn... drifting is easy. It's just the painful hand positioning, which was my main point yet you didn't mention it, that is the real issue.
 
well my hands feel perfectly fine when I control it. The controller should fit to your hand so I'm guessing that your holding it in a way that's improper or your the size of your hands are affecting the way you hold the controller for racing games. As for when to use the shield, you do have to time it right, but you can hear the beeps are getting close enough for you activate the shield. I've gotten better at doing that and I almost always block strong attacks when I have a high shield.
 
I have to agree that the button layout is bad for hand comfort. The control layout seems lke it could have been beter thought out. Customizable button mapping would cure this.
 
After playing the demo i deleted it right away. I thought the controls were terrible and so was the track they let you race on. I don't think this game is going to be very good at all. I probably wouldn't buy it for 5 dollars.
 
I've been playing the demo, and so far, I absolutely love it! The controls feel just fine to me - drifting in particular feels smooth. I like the "strategy" elements, such as having to land your kart in the proper direction after a spin, and choosing between shield vs. boost. The winner for me, though, is the creator tools - WOW. Just WOW. I have never seen anything this deep in any other game - not even LittleBigPlanet. The mod creator is absolutely sick; once everything is unlocked in the full game, I think people are going to be able to create just about anything!

It was a Day One purchase before - now it's a MINUTE One purchase; I'll be there the moment the doors open on the 25th to pick up my copy! :bouncy:
 
[quote name='Thomas96']I've got to go and preorder the game. Amazon is the only one giving a 10 dollar credit?[/QUOTE]

No, GameStop is too I believe.
 
It felt a bit weird to control the kart with the analog control, but I did get used to it soon, like Mario Kart drifting seems essential to when playing on a harder difficulty. The game seems really fun, and I'm keeping my preorder, hopefully I find some CAGs to play with.
 
i wanna like this game, but like Mario Kart, it rewards the people that suck too much with amazing power ups and gives the people in the top 3 consistently terrible items.
 
[quote name='jman619']After playing the demo. I'm interested in buying it. Maybe not at release,but somewhere down the line.[/QUOTE]

Same.

Sadly, with all the other games that just released, this doesn't feel like a $60 game to me. My plate is too full with this weeks releases, plus SMG 2 on Sunday, so I'll just wait for a price drop on Modnation.
 
[quote name='kurrptsenate']i wanna like this game, but like Mario Kart, it rewards the people that suck too much with amazing power ups and gives the people in the top 3 consistently terrible items.[/QUOTE]

What are you talking about? Have you actually played the demo/game?

Usually if you're in the back you're likely to get the boost items.

There's only 4 weapons classes and 3 of them are used for attacking people...

Also, for any power up to get strong, it requires you to upgrade them to that level.
 
Been playing this a bit and I'm liking it a lot so far, though I haven't played multiplayer yet. I played two sections of the career mode and the story they use to frame the races is better than what I was expecting for a kart racing game. I like that they tie items to three main challenges for each race, which avoids the way that LBP required a lot more skill and extra players to get everything in a level. The controls work just fine for me, though customization would've been nice since they don't use every button on the controller.

Be prepared for a ton of licensed characters when you first get to the hub or creation area, as Spider-Man, Mario, and Luigi were the top three user-created mods. The cars will be much harder to replicate famous cars, though I noticed some adaptations of the A Team van and other cars like that that were doable. I made Fry from Futurama since I noticed some items that could help make the hair doable, so if you see one of him made by CrashSpyro, try it out and rate it.

Load times are definitely its biggest issue since every SP race I had took over a minute to load, but at least they're working on a patch to fix that. The community trophies seem to be a bit harder than LBP, so expect more spamming for downloads/ratings. I'm not sure exactly how the XP works for sharing, but 250k XP seems like a lot to earn as a creator.
 
[quote name='FriskyTanuki']Been playing this a bit and I'm liking it a lot so far, though I haven't played multiplayer yet. I played two sections of the career mode and the story they use to frame the races is better than what I was expecting for a kart racing game. I like that they tie items to three main challenges for each race, which avoids the way that LBP required a lot more skill and extra players to get everything in a level. The controls work just fine for me, though customization would've been nice since they don't use every button on the controller.

Be prepared for a ton of licensed characters when you first get to the hub or creation area, as Spider-Man, Mario, and Luigi were the top three user-created mods. The cars will be much harder to replicate famous cars, though I noticed some adaptations of the A Team van and other cars like that that were doable. I made Fry from Futurama since I noticed some items that could help make the hair doable, so if you see one of him made by CrashSpyro, try it out and rate it.

Load times are definitely its biggest issue since every SP race I had took over a minute to load, but at least they're working on a patch to fix that. The community trophies seem to be a bit harder than LBP, so expect more spamming for downloads/ratings. I'm not sure exactly how the XP works for sharing, but 250k XP seems like a lot to earn as a creator.[/QUOTE]

You got it early? From where?

Ugh, I really can't wait until Tuesday. Maybe I should go down to some stores today and see if they have it on sale yet. I mean, I haven't preordered it yet.
 
[quote name='mywhitenoise']Are they not offering the Ratchet and Clank skins anymore? I was about to pre-order just for that.[/QUOTE]

Just called in and the allotment of pre-order bonused Amazon had have all been claimed. Dammit.
 
[quote name='outkastx']Just called in and the allotment of pre-order bonused Amazon had have all been claimed. Dammit.[/QUOTE]

I really didn't want to preorder this either, in light of all my other game purchases this week...it doesn't really feel like a $60 game to me... but I didn't want to pass up the R&C skins. Honestly, and I know I'm in the minority, but I would have rather ordered with Gamestop but I didn't want to Kratos skin

SO - you never know, if you preorder it somewhere else, like Gamestop, you can probably find someone else on CAG that will swap you their Amazon R&C skins for the Gamestop Kratos skin. And if not, with Gamestop, you could always just return it in-store for a full refund...?
 
[quote name='Jmclark']You got it early? From where?

Ugh, I really can't wait until Tuesday. Maybe I should go down to some stores today and see if they have it on sale yet. I mean, I haven't preordered it yet.[/QUOTE]


Probably a review copy, but correct if I'm wrong (which I usually am!).
 
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