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An appreciation of the PlayStation Vita on its 10th birthday
The PlayStation Vita was powerful, beautiful and less popular than the 3DS. Join us as we celebrate our favorite titles on Sony's last handheld.
PS Plus in February: Outlast, Metro: Last Light, Payday 2
It's memories, robberies, and underground monstrosities for PlayStation Plus subscribers next month, with February's line-up featuring Remember Me, Payday 2, and Metro: Last Light. As for Vita, it's the cutesy karts of Modnation Racers: Road Trip, and the less cutesy cross-beats of Street Fighter X Tekken. No, Plus hasn't forgotten about the PS4, silly billy. Sony's newest console is getting asylum horror Outlast on Plus next month, but we already knew that. The real question is when: PlayStation UK's website says next week on February 5, so going by PSN traditions that'd mean a February 4 showing in North America. We'll find out for sure soon enough. Looking at the PS3 games specifically, we'd recommend checking out the "suffocating despair" of shooter sequel Metro: Last Light - no really, it's fun! - and the heist-em-up capers of Payday 2 if you haven't already have. As for Remember Me? Well, if you like neo-action games full of neo-jargon, then sure - but maybe read Ludwig's neo-review first.
Name the new ModNation Racers Vita game
Sony's launched a public request to name the upcoming PlayStation Vita version of ModNation Racers in a recent US PlayStation Blog post. Our first inclination was to suggest "The PlayStation Vita Version of ModNation Racers" in the allotted comments section, but the name lacked a certain pizazz we were hoping for. After thinking awhile longer, we figured out an absolutely perfect one: "ModNation Racers: Vita!" Take that, professional marketing guys!%Gallery-125158%
New Modnation Racers DLC rolls out
More ModNation Racers DLC was promised, and here it is: a Water World parts pack and a new fire-engine themed kart plus racer are now available in the game for your microtransaction purchase. "Backburn" is a fire fighter racer, and he's got a miniature fire engine to drive, available for $1 each or a 25 percent off if you buy them together. The Water World parts pack allows players to insert rafts, slides and even an inflatable shark into their ModNation Racers courses. That pack is $6.99, and joins the Big City Career Extension Pack and Arctic Career Extension Pack (both $9.99) in the PS3 and PSP versions of the game. Finally, the PlayStation blog is also awarding the "Moddies" this month, celebrating the best user-created content from the game. You can see the results over here -- some of those tracks and mods are very, very well done, and all of them are up for download right now. Congrats to all the honorees!
ModNation Racers (PS Vita) preview: Micro machines
When the PS Vita finally makes its way into the public's hands later on this year, Sony will have at least one big ace up its sleeve right away on release day. A version of ModNation Racers will be out and ready to buy with the console, and all of the tracks and vehicles (that's all of them) currently available on the PS3 and PSP will be available to download and play right away. That's a ton of content, and just picking up ModNation Racers gets you access to all of it, a pretty clever way to fill out what might be a pretty sparse launch library for the PS Vita. That in itself might be enough to sell the game -- a racing title is hard to mess up even on a brand new handheld, and of course this one plays just as well as all of the other versions. But no, Sony's taken the ambitious step of including the ModNation Racers editor in the mix, allowing you to make use of all of the PS Vita's various bells and whistles while building up tracks. And for the most part, it works, both as an actual track editor, and as a showcase for interacting with the Vita's touchscreens. There are a few hiccups (pressing on the rear touchscreen to make mountains is weird), but it all works out quite well. %Gallery-125158%
ModNation Racers modded into Vita game
Among the litany of PlayStation franchises you'll get to experience on the PlayStation Vita is the kart racer ModNation Racers. The Vita version includes touchscreen creation controls -- and a ton of user-generated content! Like 2 million+ items. Because all the content created by users for the PS3 version of the game will be available for the Vita version on day one.
Feast your eyes on a menagerie of new NGP game images
We may not know much about Sony's NGP (or is it PlayStation Vita?) just yet, but we do have a whole mess of new images from its game lineup. After the break, you'll find eight (eight!) galleries of brand new screens, pulled from Uncharted, Wipeout, Little Deviants, and many more.
Sony's 'Welcome Back' campaign apologizes to distraught PSN users with free games, good vibes
Remember the recent PlayStation Network outage? You know the one, right? It started in late-April and lasted up through this weekend's phased restoration (and continues on for many un-phased users). Well, Sony would like to sincerely apologize for the whole thing the best way it knows how: free video games. The company today announced its "Welcome Back" program, which is letting all existing PSN and Qriocity users in North America pick two of the following games: Dead Nation, inFAMOUS, LittleBigPlanet, Super Stardust HD, and Wipeout HD + Fury. PSP users, meanwhile, can chose two from LittleBigPlanet, ModNation Racers, Pursuit Force, and Kill Liberation. You can claim the games at some point in the next 30 days, and once you've downloaded, they're yours to keep. The gesture may well prove too little, too late for many disgruntled users -- but even they'll likely have trouble staying angry at Sackboy's adorable little dirt-stained mug.
ModNation Racers reaches 2 million user-created items; more DLC to come
The race to two million user creations in ModNation Racers took considerably longer to finish than the first-miilion milestone (which was achieved in less than three months). Just over nine month's since Modnation's release, the collective community has finally passed the two-million mark in creations -- a wealth of content for players, old and new alike, to share. PlayStation Blog also confirms that more "official" DLC is on the way, with new karts, characters and prop packs planned. A free "Parts Pack" is already available on the PlayStation Store, and upcoming track packs (used to create new tracks) will include western and pirate themes. Additionally, (official) developer United Front Games is working on new career DLC. [Image source: Flickr; credit: StargamerX]
Uncharted 2 GOTY, God of War 3 and others become latest PS3 'Greatest Hits' for $30
Sony has promoted four of its favorites to PS3 "Greatest Hits," dropping the price of each to $30. The most significant addition to Sony's growing lineup of discounted bestsellers of yesteryear is the "Game of the Year" Edition of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, which includes a plethora of extra content not included in the original release. God of War 3, Heavy Rain and ModNation Racers were the three other first-party titles to be made Hits. Additionally, THQ's UFC Undisputed 2010 was recognized as one of last year's best, representing the first third-party game to become part of the PS3's 2010 hall of fame class.
ModNation Racers for-pay cheat unlocks everything, coming tomorrow
The latest of what we like to call "lazy gamer" cheats -- downloadable unlocks that open up entire games, for a price -- is actually inbound from Sony for ModNation Racers. It's called the "Career Unlock All Key" and, for $3 tomorrow on the PlayStation Store, evidently does what its name suggests. Given the ultra-creative nature of the game, we can't really knock the idea of having access to all of the stickers, karts, tracks, themes and other various parts on the disc (and those added by DLC, if you've already bought it). Then again, if you've already sunk $60 into the retail release and more into DLC, you'd think the least Sony could do is throw in some seat covers a code.
ModNation Racers 'Stunt Pack' free for 2 weeks beginning Oct. 26
We like our ModNation tracks short and sweet, but we're sure you'll have your own ideas for next week's "Stunt Pack" DLC -- free for two weeks. The pack's complete contents, including all the parts we didn't use, are posted after the break.
ModNation Racers now $40 on PS3, $20 on PSP
It's a big day for officially-sanctioned discounts on Sony games. First the new Greatest Hits, then the Uncharted 2 Game of the Year Edition, and now United Front's cheerful DIY kart game ModNation Racers. The publisher has announced a price drop for both the PS3 and PSP versions of Racers, to $40 and $20 respectively. And if that's not exciting enough, Sony is also releasing a set of ModNation PSN avatars today! Wait, the price drop thing was much more exciting. We really should have led with that if we wanted to build up.
Sony Style offering free game with 120GB PS3 purchase
If you're in the market for a new PS3, and you don't mind waiting just a bit, Sony Style has an appealing offer. Through August 21, Sony's retail site is offering one of six first-party games for free with the purchase of a 120GB PS3 Slim. You can choose from Uncharted 2, MotorStorm: Pacific Rift, MAG, Heavy Rain, ModNation Racers or White Knight Chronicles. Why the wait? The PS3 is currently on backorder at Sony Style, though the offer still seems to be good. So you can order now and actually receive your system later. Think of it as setting your future self up with a wonderful surprise. [Thanks, Pete!]
ModNation Racers 1.02 patch improves load times by nearly 30%
As noted in our review, ModNation Racers' load times were unbearably long upon release. When Sony promised that today's 1.02 patch would improve this issue, we busted out the stopwatches to find out for ourselves. Does the patch significantly improve the load times for races? The answer appears to be a definitive "yes." We used the first five tracks in the Quick Race mode and calculated the average load time to begin a race before and after the patch was installed. Based on our calculations, it took an average of 45.6 seconds to load a single race before implementing the 1.02 patch. Additionally, returning to the Mod Spot after the race took an average of 24.3 seconds of loading. With 1.02 installed, however, the load time to begin a race decreased drastically. Starting a race took an average of 32.7 seconds, which is about 28 percent faster than the pre-patch time! The loading time it took to return to the Mod Spot after a race also improved with the patch, but not significantly: It still took an average of 22.4 seconds. Even after the patch, we're still looking at nearly a full minute of combined load times for each race. Still, the improved speediness of launching a race must come as good news for fans of the game.
ModNation Racers receives Title Update 1.02 tomorrow
Tomorrow, ModNation Racers, uh, racers can download Title Update 1.02, which addresses long load times, squashes some bugs, improves server stability and adds a new "casual" difficulty level. The update will go live at 2:00 a.m. PDT and also brings with it a bunch of changes to the community site including race logs, tracking systems for monitoring your favorite creators (and their favorite creators), plus friend and rep search utilities, according to the PlayStation Blog. Speed demons looking to expand their roster of racers can also download Nukular and Kart this week, a new ride and driver who look like they just leapt out of Mad Max or something. All we can say is we'd definitely steer clear of the guy on the track with the huge plow on the front of his ride. Just saying!
ModNation Racers career mode getting 'Casual' difficulty
Have you been the recipient of more than a fair share of victory-denying rocket bombardments while playing through the career mode in ModNation Racers? The odds are about to tilt back in your favor -- in a recent post on PlayStation.Blog, SCEA San Diego community manager Ramone Russell announced that United Front Games is currently putting the finishing touches on a Casual difficulty mode for the game's single-player campaign. The post doesn't specify as to when we can expect the new difficulty. It also doesn't specify whether switching to Casual mode automatically generates and broadcasts a message to your PSN friends, informing them of what a tremendous sissy you are.
ModNation Racers' top 15 finish sets slow pace for May racing game sales
Despite three high-profile launches in May, the racing genre got lapped that month, according to NPD sales data. Sony's PS3-exclusive ModNation Racers, Activision's Bizarre-developed Blur and Disney's excellent Split/Second all fared poorly on the retail circuit with ModNation squeezing its way into the top 15 (on just one platform, mind you), while the other two multiplatform titles didn't crack the top 30. Analyst Michael Pachter told IGN that he "thought the ModNation number was respectable, since the game came out only on May 25." Blur came out on the same day, so, relatively, its sales were disappointing. While sales figures weren't provided for any of the above games, Pachter writes in his monthly NPD analysis that Blur "sold well below our estimate of 100,000 units," giving us some insight into how both it and Split/Second performed. However, Split/Second was released a week earlier than ModNation and Blur. With two much higher-profile racing games coming out this fall, in Gran Turismo 5 and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, it remains to be seen if the racing genre itself is toxic at the checkout counter or if gamers have simply passed over May's hybrid concepts, content to wait for the new models of their favorite makes.
Copyrighted characters dominate ModNation Racers' top creations
Give gamers creation tools, and they'll immediately recreate icons from other famous franchises. Like LittleBigPlanet before it, ModNation Racers' extensive character and car editor has been used to pay homage to a number of high-profile games and films -- and these creations are the most beloved by the MNR community. In addition to Peto-Mad's Mario (above), the top downloaded creations include Iron Man, Spider-Man, and a Transformer to boot. The accuracy of these creations have us wondering: will Sony take these user-submitted Mods down before another company threatens a lawsuit?
Virgin Gaming to offer online game tournaments
Virgin Gaming may not be ready to officially reveal its operations until E3, but a bit of sleuthing has shown that at least part of its business likely will be online tournaments for popular games -- with cash prizes. MaxConsole found that the VirginGaming.com domain is administered by Entertainment Tech, the same company that runs WorldGaming.com; a site that allows members to compete in PS3 and Xbox 360 games for money. In addition, a call by MaxConsole to Entertainment Tech's Toronto office reportedly was met by a "Welcome to Virgin Gaming" greeting. Even more conclusive is this page on the Virgin site for a ModNation Racers "Online Tournament" for Canadian gamers, held in coordination with GameStop and EBGames' Canadian branches. When contacted by Joystiq, Virgin declined to comment on its business as it relates to game tournaments -- so we'll continue holding out hope that tournaments will be merely a side project, and the real business of Virgin Gaming will be to publish a Color a Dinosaur sequel.
