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Spike VGA's second 'mystery' teaser
And there it is, people: The second "mystery" teaser for this year's Spike VGA award show, shown first here on Joystiq. (The first, you'll recall, was 2K Games' franchise reboot of Spec Ops). Since we don't have any insider info on the developer or the publisher behind the game, we'll simply share what we know: This is a new, unannounced game that will be revealed for the first time at the VGAs; the trailer's narration is delivered by a "well-known actor" (Tom Wilkinson?); and the reveal at the VGAs will have actual gameplay. Share your best educated guesses in the comments below and we'll bubble the best to the top. We'll start you out: That's a Hong Kong police badge, so we're saying True Crime 3: Hong Kong. [Update: Internet sleuth superannuation posits that this mystery title is none other than Black Lotus, the as-of-yet-unnamed Activision-published, United Front-developed action title announced earlier this year. Just about the only thing we know about the project on the record is that it's "a new action-based game set in Hong Kong" by the studio working on ModNation Racers. Do we have a winner?]
ModNation Racers races back into view with new trailer
Now that the big holiday games have already come out, it's time for you to start worrying about the deluge of games in early 2010. One of the games Sony hopes you'll use your post-Xmas trade credit towards is ModNation Racers. Although originally unveiled at E3, Sony has been incredibly quiet with the LittleBigPlanet-inspired racer. With its first public beta getting readied for release, it's time for Sony to pull the curtain.Here's yet another trailer for the game, which provides an overview of all the major components of ModNation Racers. First you must create a character, then a car -- and if you're feeling creative enough, you can attempt to make your very own track. It looks sleek, but we'll definitely be reserving our judgment until we can get our hands on the beta.Check out a fast-forwarded look at character creation, after the break.%Gallery-64898%
Gamefly lists ModNation Racers for PSP as well
It makes perfect sense, if you think about it -- at E3, the talk of the town regarding United Front's new franchise, ModNation Racers, is that it's the kart racing equivalent of LittleBigPlanet. Why, then, would it not follow the trajectory of Media Molecule's highly customizable platformer, springing from the console from whence it came onto Sony's handheld? According to a recent Gamefly listing, ModNation Racers is doing just that. The popular game rental service recently added a PSP entry titled Modnation, which is supposedly set to share the PS3 game's tentative release date of February 28. We've emailed United Front to see if GameFly's got their ducks in a row.Update: A Sony PR rep replied to us with a standard issue response, claiming, "reference to any other version of this title is merely rumor and speculation."[Via Siliconera]
Impressions: ModNation Racers
What game doesn't get better with a bit of customization? Gamers love infusing a little bit of their own personality into their games; whether it's changing your character's appearance in Mass Effect, making your own adventures in Neverwinter Nights or just editing all the names in the latest Final Fantasy to swear words. LittleBigPlanet's entire business model is based on selling customizable costumes which don't affect gameplay -- and it works. ModNation Racers -- Sony's newest entry to their Play, Create, Share genre -- looks to take the idea even further.In ModNation Racers every part of the gameplay experience is customizable to the Nth degree and the DIY features seem really quite powerful, from what we were shown during the extended demonstration. While LittleBigPlanet allows you to dress up your Sackboy with new costume parts and facial features, ModNation Racers allows you to move, rotate and scale these individually, as well as changing the color scheme of individual items, or the entire costume, in order to keep everything color co-ordinated with the click of a button.The style of the game, and the characters in particular, is based off a modern art movement called Urban Vinyl Toys. Artists start with a basic character shape, as you will in ModNation Racers, and then layer details on top. In doing so, countless artists can create hugely varying designs, despite starting from the same basic idea. The same principle is present in ModNation Racers, as you're given countless features to add to your character, some of which have 3D elements and some of which are more like 2D stickers.%Gallery-64898%
United Front has 'big plans' for ModNation
Okay, ModNation Racers has just been announced and it looks pretty neat -- more on that later -- but have you thought of the bigger picture? The ModNation brand? We're thinking ModNation Shooter or ModNation Adventure ... ModNation Golf? We asked United Fronts' William Ho about the possibility of these things, who said there were "big plans" for ModNation in the future. Not confirmation at all, but the urban vinyl toy style of the game definitely lends itself to more than just a racing game. For starters, how much better would Home be with avatars like these? What we saw of Racers apparently only scratched the surface of the title, but fun games with cool, easy character customization and level editing features have been a hit in the past. As long as they steer away from a four-player side-scrolling platforming ModNation, we'll be cool.
Activision enlists United Front Games for new action property
Vancouver-based United Front Games announced today that it is developing "a new action-based game set in Hong Kong" for Activision. The studio, founded in 2007, is comprised of former staffers from EA Black Box, Rockstar, Action Pants, Propaganda Games, Radical Entertainment and Next Level Games. The untitled Activision project will be the Canadian studio's first shipped game. In a release, United Front Games general manager, Stefan Wessels, said, "We have assembled industry talent from around the world, who have worked in senior positions on renowned titles such as the Need for Speed series, SKATE, Bully, Scarface, Godfather, Hulk, Spore and the NHL Sports franchise." Wessels himself was producer of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 while at EA Black Box, and stated that the company has "enormous expectations of ourselves." With a resume like that, we'd certainly say so. Hopefully we'll find out what the developer has been, er ... developing for the past two years during E3.
