PlayStation LifeStyle » United Front Games

PS3 Preview – LittleBigPlanet Karting

Paulmichael Contreras — Fri, 04 May 2012 14:03:54 +0000

While PlayStation LifeStyle was busy playing PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale last week, that same press preview event also featured LittleBigPlanet Karting, which was officially announced a few months ago. Now that the game has had some more time to polish, how is it shaping up? Is it little more than ModNation Racers X LittleBigPlanet, or has the team at United Front Games done enough to make this feel like a true extension of the LittleBigPlanet universe? Find out in our hands-on preview.

Before I get started, let me just say that I have been a huge LittleBigPlanet fan since I first witnessed the game in motion. I’ll never forget when I first saw that GDC demo of the first game. I made it my goal to get in the beta as soon as humanly possible, where I then crafted a little skatepark level in about 10 hours of fooling around in the Create mode. From then on, I was constantly amazed at just how creative the community became. So you’d think I went into this preview session a bit biased towards loving an LBP Karting game. You wouldn’t be faulted for thinking that, however, nothing could be further from the truth. I went into this demo with pretty doubtful expectations. Since LittleBigPlanet is very near to this gamer’s heart, seeing the beloved franchise in another developer’s hands is always cause for concern. Plus, how well could LBP work in a karting-only environment? This got me thinking, surely there must be 3D Kart levels in LittleBigPlanet 2 that would satiate my need for Sackboy-flavored speed.

Then I Googled “LittleBigPlanet 2 kart levels,” and I was sorely disappointed. Sure, there are some cute levels, but they are all sidescrolling. Although doing a pseudo-3D level in LBP 2 is possible, it is hardly easy to do, and there is no level that I have found that accurately replicates all the nuances that go into a decent kart game – no powerups, no weapons, and of course the way that LBP 2 handles players falling behind in a race (it kills you after you’re offscreen for too long) just wouldn’t work here.

Ok. So we’ve established that LBP 2 cannot really be used to make a full-fledged kart simulator. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense to hand over the license to the glory of Sackboy to United Front Games. After all, ModNation Racers was a thoroughly enjoyable, customizable kart racer, load times aside. But would this be a simple character swap of placing Sackboy into ModNation Racers? After playing quite a few races and battles, I can safely say that this is a karting game within the LittleBigPlanet universe. The interface is not reminiscent of ModNation Racers whatsoever. You still have a Popit menu, including customizing your Sackperson with new textures, stickers, etc. The same thing also now applies to your cart. You can choose the materials your car is made of, which wouldn’t feel out of place in LBP 2 – cardboard, soda cans, paper clips, and more. You can also decide how your car actually moves, whether that’s regular tires, a hovercraft, a zeppelin, or something else entirely. United Front Games got the whole feel of the LittleBigPlanet world intact. Speaking of which, for those who may not know, Stephen Fry had earlier been confirmed as the narrator for LBP Karting, which was a big relief. We didn’t see how the game handled splitscreen, but I have faith that UFG is more than capable of delivering a smooth experience based on their track record (pun sort-of intended).

So now we’ve come to the most important question – how does the game play? This is where you are reminded that the game is being developed by UFG. It feels basically like ModNation Racers while you drive. The cars are fast, the turning is a little floaty, and the drifting is really easy to keep going. The grappling hook from LBP 2 makes an appearance here – you latch onto the familiar spongy material, and if you time it right you can get to a higher platform of a level, which is usually a shortcut. It adds separate vertical pathways, and is a creative way to incorporate a familiar tool from the previous game.

Taking a cue from Mario Kart, there is a battle mode in LBP Karting. Rather than having a certain set of lives from the start, it’s a race to the top of the scoreboard as you rack up KOs. In the demo’s case, it was first to 10 wins. The AI was really easy, but I was assured that this can be tweaked. All weapons from the race mode are here, picked up by running through what appeared to be the Paintinator. Notable weapons included explosive box mines and bomb lobbers that looked like they were pulled straight from LBP 2. In this battle mode, it’s one hit KOs for everyone, but aside from a lock-on missile the ammo doesn’t tend to be too accurate, so you have to time your shots. Although you’re using some explosive weapons, there’s no real carnage here – you simply vanish with a puff of smoke when you get hit. It’s a mildly entertaining mode, and it’ll be interesting to see what kinds of levels people come up with for this mode.

As the day concluded, I left the demo impressed with just how well UFG got the feel of LBP down pat. The game was fun, but not that ear-to-ear grin I got when I first laid eyes on LittleBigPlanet. Some of that may be because I am now used to seeing Sackboy, or maybe I’m just not that big of a fan of kart games. None of the levels really stood out and impressed me. Granted, I only saw three levels, and mastered them rather quickly, but unlike LittleBigPlanet you can only create one kind of level – a karting level. How far can you stretch that concept? Is a karting game starring Sackboy really necessary? Time and sales will dictate that, but in the meantime I remain cautiously optimistic about LittleBigPlanet Karting.

True Crime: Hong Kong Hitting the Streets Next Year

Tyler Minarik — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 01:28:33 +0000

True Crime: Hong Kong was canceled earlier this year by Activision, and now picked back up by Square Enix, who has just set a time frame for the game’s release.

It was only a few days ago that we reported to you about True Crime: Hong Kong‘s rescue scenario, where Square Enix acquire the publishing rights to the game after seeing potential in it that apparently wasn’t worth Activision’s time or money. The publisher is excited about the new acquisition, with their London Studios general manager Lee Singleton saying, “When we first saw and got our hands on the game we fell in love with it.” However, at the time they were moot on the point of release dates, with him stating “We’re not talking about release timings or formats at this time.”

Apparently that amount of time was quite short, because earlier today we found a posting on Square Enix’s website stating the game will be releasing sometime in 2012. The game formerly known as True Crime: Hong Kong was previously slated for this November, so it’s clear that United Front Games still has a bit of work to do on it yet, perhaps including thinking of a new title. It was also mentioned that since the acquisition of publishing rights the name would need to be changed, but to something fairly straight forward according to Singleton. In the mean time United Front Games seems happy to be able to finish their project, with President Stefan Wessels saying they are “really pleased to be working with Square Enix London Studios and their excitement on the game means a great deal to us.” Hopefully this is Activision’s folly to Square Enix’s benefit, since there have been rumblings of Square Enix’s projected profits being slashed, leading many to speculate about their future success.

Modnation Racers Meets a Monumental Milestone

Corey Schwanz — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 19:04:55 +0000

Modnation Racers, the PlayStation 3′s own Race, Create, Share title released just 9 months ago already has some fantastic news to share.

United Front Games’ first venture into the kart-racing genre seems to be a successful one. Not only was the game just recently announced to be one of the PS3′s Greatest Hits (bringing the price to a nice $29.99), as well a full digital release on the PlayStation Store today, but Modnation Racers just had its 2 millionth creation published. 2 million.

The developer revealed:

If you download and race one track a day, everyday, it would take you well over one full millennium to finish, and that’s including leap year days!

And what better way to celebrate this occasion than with a contest? Sponsored by Progressive Insurance, the free Parts Pack will be available tomorrow and will include 13 new items to play around with. If you use any of the parts to create a custom track for the contest, you could be entered to win a PlayStation Move Sports Champions Bundle, or even a Sony Bravia 3DTV. So go get creating!

[Source]

True Crime Developer Speaks Out on The Game’s Cancellation

Zak Islam — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 01:34:25 +0000

The world’s largest publisher, Activision dropped a few bombshells yesterday when they announced their latest financial results. Not only did the entire Guitar Hero series get shelved, along with DJ Hero 3, the company also completely stopped the development of United Front Games’ True Crime: Hong Kong. The ModNation Racers‘ developer has now spoken about the cancellation of their project.

Activision CEO, Bobby Kotick stated that the reason for the True Crime reboot being canned was “based on the desire to focus on the greatest opportunities that the company currently has to create the world’s best interactive entertainment experiences.” Kotick’s right hand man Eric Hirshberg, COO of Activision Publishing, said the cancellation of the title was that it wouldn’t be able to compete against the best games in the sandbox genre.

United Front Games said regarding the sad news on their website:

We are sorry we did not get a chance to complete this project with Activision, but we understand why. We are both committed to doing quality games and nothing less. Maybe we will have a chance to work together in the future, but in the meantime we are setting our creative sights on a different horizon. You can keep up with the latest developments at UFG here on our site.

The future of the developer is unclear, and hopefully the independent studio will be able to weather the financial difficulties such a cancellation will inevitably cause.

ModNation DLC-mania

Tyler Minarik — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 07:45:46 +0000

Continuing with the support of their play, create, share themed karting game, United Front Games has announced today that they will be releasing a slew of content throughout the coming months.

The content will include more pieces for customizing tracks, karts, parts, and costumes of some our favorite PlayStation characters. On December 21st the first piece of this action will release on PSN and will include a career extension as well as a Far East theme for track creation. Following that in January are Jak & Daxter costumes and karts, as well as Helghast karts and costumes in February. No details on pricing have been given at this time.

Free DLC and Double XP Drifts to ModNation Racers

Jonathan Leack — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 02:04:50 +0000

ModNation Racers has been one of the most customizable experiences in recent years with its fully user-created society featuring custom cars, tracks, and even characters. United Front Games has been supporting the game heavily with additional content, and now the company is looking to offer some special bonuses for free!

Starting on October 26th, the first of two planned part packs is going to be released for ModNation Racers. This special pack includes ramps, props, and several other items to enhance the level editor. The best part? It will be available absolutely free for two-weeks following release. In addition, United Front Games is hosting a double XP week starting on October 26th as well.

For those who have ModNation Racers but haven’t played it in a while, now’s a great chance to hop back into the wonderful world of Mods. A patch was released not too long ago which addressed community concerns, the region-lock was done away with, and the experience is much more developed now that thousands of users have uploaded their fine work. Also, with double XP offered for a whole week, it’d be crazy not to join. Start warming up your engine!

[Source]

ModNation Racers Takes Shortcut, Receives Price Cut

Thomas Williams — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 05:50:49 +0000

It was easy for gamers to overlook United Front Games ModNation Racers earlier this Summer. Stuck between the releases of Blur, Split/Second, and the multi-platinum selling blockbuster, Red Dead Redemption, ModNation Racers didn’t exactly burn up the sales chart. However, that didn’t stop the game from being one of the BEST Kart racers released the past 5 years. Fantastic news for all of you who might have waited on this overlooked gem, as Sony has issued a price cut for both the PS3 and PSP versions of the game.

With over 300,000 tracks available to burn rubber on, now is the perfect time to join the ModNation Racing League. For a cool $39.99, this ticket is ridiculously good deal. Just like the original LittleBigPlanet, this ‘Play. Create. Share.’ is going to keep you busy for a long, long time. For those who might a taste of MNR on the go, the PSP version has been slashed to a oh-so-nice price of $19.99. With over 16,000 tracks created, the PSP version is the perfect counterpart to it’s bigger brother.

If this price cut doesn’t entice you, then make sure you read PlayStation LifeStyle’s Reviews for BOTH versions. Check out the PlayStation 3 Review and the PSP Review.

Are you tempted to join in on the ModNation fun? Let us know in the comments below.

ModNation Racers Frees Up Region Restrictions

Ray Conley — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 15:50:43 +0000

In spite of ModNation Racers’ overall success, some race jocks have harbored some gripes against its multiplayer feature. It wasn’t that the online racing was lacking in exhilarating thrills and nail-biting gameplay, but rather the restriction to playing with your buddies only in your region. Now that disappointment can be left in the dust.

The devs over at United Front Games had admitted that the region limitation was a result of how the game handled transferring the large amount of shared data between all the players for an online match. At the time of the title’s release, the current data transferring would only work well within shorter distances, mainly to preserve the performance of the game. However, after a few mods to their own ModNation Racer, they’ve finally manage to optimize the transfer protocols to enable worldwide racing!

The latest version of ModNation Racer 1.4 should take care the former restriction, and set you free to race with your pen pals on the other side of the world!

[Source]

True Crime Won’t Come to Hong Kong This Year

Paulmichael Contreras — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 21:38:44 +0000

True Crime: Hong Kong (or simply True Crime as publisher Activision refers to it) is the third entry in the True Crime series of games. While the first two entries were developed by now-defunct Luxoflux, this entry will be developed by the geniuses behind ModNation Racers at United Front Games. But even they cannot stop the possibility of a delay…

The game (which apparently originally had a female lead character, an idea that Activision shot down) was originally slated to be released this fall, then it was pushed back until November. Now, according to the latest earnings report from Activision, the title has been pushed back into 2011:

“Activision Publishing has moved the anticipated release date for its upcoming open-world action title, True Crime: Hong Kong, from 2010 to 2011 in order to give the development team more time to deliver the high-quality entertainment experience they envision for the game.”

Given UFG’s previous work with the excellent ModNation Racers, there is little doubt that this extra time will really add polish to the game. Hopefully the game will not have any loading issues on launch date, though…

ModNation Racers Receives a Major Tune Up with Newest Patch

Thomas Williams — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 14:01:39 +0000

Since being released this past May, ModNation Racers has been plague by two glaring issues — ridiculous load times and crushing AI on any level of the game you play on. Who doesn’t love when they’re 50ft from the finish-line, in 1st place, only to get blasted by your rival and fall all the way to 7th?! Have no fear though, United Front Games has been working day and night on to improve MNR and you’ll only have to wait a few more days until the improvements arrive. Ladies and gentlemen..get ready to start…your..engines!

Fans of ModNation Racer get ready to fall back in love with MNR because the following updates below are sure to get you back in the driver’s seat for United Front Game’s racer.

Load times have been improved tremendously. Sony even claims that some have been cut by 50%. Impressive!! Kinda sucks that I can’t make a sandwich in-between races anymore though..
The Casual Difficulty mode will arrive. We reported about this a couple weeks back. No longer will the AI be SO badass that you have to retry a race 4 times just to win. Perhaps this could attract some casual gamers, as well.
Previously, you could NOT invite friends to XP races. Once the patch hits next week, this will be no longer. Now you and your amigos can level your way(s) to the top of the MNR mountain.
For those of you cheaters who found glitches to cut through laps to create some
ludicrous lap times, your days are numbered. The patch will fix this problem. Booyah!
Your ‘Player card’ will now appear on ALL of your creations and not just some of them.
Online mode has been majorly improved. Have you had problems with staying online and taking forever to get into an online race? Ok, first the bad: the team has removed the online chat room before races. The good: This will improve the online structure ten-fold.
Remember how much of a punk it was completing the challenges of Devastator takedown on Wild Run, the Devastator takedown on Modobahn and the “sideswipe three opponents on the cliff side” task on Fracture?? Good news! These challenges are being re-imagined so you can get that trophy for completing all challegenes in the game. Yessss.
Free stuff!! The Tin bucket item will be available to everyone. Who doesn’t love free?

The patch goes live sometime next week! Stay tuned to PlayStation LifeStyle and we will let all you Moddies know when she’s live!!

Details on Upcoming ModNation Patch Emerge from the Pit

Adam Wolfe — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:10:16 +0000

Last week we told you that not only will the upcoming patch for ModNation Racers be improving loading times, but will also be adding a new casual mode. Now details have emerged from the pit about what this upcoming massive patch will be adding.

For those that have competed with friends in casual racers of ModNation Racers, you may have found it quite discouraging that you can’t earn XP during these races. Well word today tells us that the upcoming patch will now allow you to play with friends in XP races. There is no way of knowing if people will try and take advantage of this feature to artificially boost their online rank, but if we know anything about online gamers it’s that they will always find a way to bend the rules.

The patch is nearing final development and hopefully will be seeing the light of day in the next couple weeks.

[Source]

ModNation Goes Casual With Upcoming Patch

Adam Wolfe — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:07:33 +0000

United Front Games have been working on a new patch for ModNation Racers for a little bit now, and today we get the first bit of info on what it will include.

During their usual “ModNation Monday’s” post on the PSBlog they talked just briefly about the new patch. Here’s what they had to say:

I know everybody wants to know more about the patch that’s in development. We appreciate your patience as UFG places the final touches on it. There’s been a lot of community feedback and I think UFG has done a good job trying to include a lot of the improvements you’ve asked for. One of the improvements is the addition of a “casual” career difficulty that has less “aggressive” computer-controlled racers. I was able to spend some time last week playing the new build. Let me just say that I had a blast playing through the casual career difficulty and I think those that have been asking for this will be very pleased when you can get your hands on it!

Now even though there isn’t a lot of information there, but what is there is rather interesting. Sometimes the AI drivers in ModNation can be down right frustrating even on the easiest setting, so having a new casual mode should be nice. It is not yet known if this will have any effect on say the trophies which have you doing certain things during the career. Now this isn’t a big deal, but for trophy hunters out there this could be major.

No other details were given and no release date was set, but judging by the comments we should be seeing this release sometime within the next few weeks.

[Source]

ModNation Racers Pits Racers vs. Designers w/ Competition

Cameron Teague — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 17:34:44 +0000

Who doesn’t love a good competition? Especially when the prizes are as great as a PS3, a game and cash money. Well Sony has teamed with Hype Circle Media Network to bring us the ModNation Racers: Racers vs. Designers competition and microsite for a chance to win a Grand Prize of $2500 cash, a PlayStation PS3 console, extra controller, ModNation Racers game and PlayStation Bluetooth headset along with many more prizes.

To enter the contest, all you must do is simply click here and answer questions based on the drift racers (Tanner Foust and Tyler McQuarrie) and the vinyl designers (Huck Gee and Jesse Hernandez). The answers to all the questions can easily be obtained from watching the videos and checking out the profiles for both racers and drivers.

The contest is currently in session and will run until June the 20th so hurry on over and answer those questions, it just might be your lucky day!

Crash Team Racing Meets ModNation Racers

Kishen Patel — Sun, 30 May 2010 02:15:15 +0000

Sony’s premium kart-racing title ModNation Racers was just released with the promise of building upon the genre Media Molecule gave birth to, known as “Play, Create, Share”. With deep yet intuitive customization, there is no doubt that United Front Games successfully achieved their goal of invigorating LittleBigPlanet’s mantra. That said, it should come to no surprise that the PlayStation Network community have already crafted some jaw-dropping content.

Nostalgic PlayStation gamers should immediately identify the track in the video below as “Tiger Temple” from Naughty Dog’s award-winning PlayStation kart racer, Crash Team Racing. Even coming from little to no experience with CTR, most everyone will be floored by the professional level of detail and more importantly the impressive custom track, characters, and karts. Owners of ModNation Racers will definitely want to get their hands on this one.

ComposerRyan’s “Tiger Temple” remake and the other CTR related mods are available for download within the Share section of ModNation Racers. Check out the official debut video for this content below:

ModNation Racers Gets Hilarious Viral Advertisment

Anthony Severino — Thu, 27 May 2010 17:49:02 +0000

ModNation Racers is now available everywhere, and to coincide with its launch in Europe a hilarious viral ad has been released that asks you… “If you could mod… Would you?” After watching the video and having a good laugh, ask yourself the same question. You know you would if you could…

So would you mod if you could? What did you think about the video?