One of the main selling points of the original ModNation Racers was fast and furious online ‘head to head’ racing.
With this in mind it’s quite a surprise to learn that the Vita game, Road Trip, won’t have this feature. In its place will be ad-hoc multiplayer, as well as the ability to save your best times and compare them against others.
This is a bit of a shame really. Here’s hoping for a really outstanding single-player experience – we’ll have our review of the game up very soon…
Update: There has been a bit of confusion surrounding this, so here’s a screengrab of the message that displays when you start an Ad-Hoc Race, the only multiplayer option.
Source: PlayStation.com
Bilbo_bobbins
oh dear, thats a big shame I think
james123
Strange……
tonycawley
No sale. The whole point of the game is to design your own karts and tracks and race them online. Stupidity! They’re going to lose thousands of sales because of this. I also hear motorstorm is the same, no online racing on that either!
bacon_nuts
Really? I’d be hugely surprised if they cut it all, instead of just competitive racing. I’d rather not look at all the crappy karts and mods that people make personally, but then, I didn’t really like modnation, so should probably be quiet..
teflon
Just competitive racing is gone. You can do time trials, share tracks, share mods and karts, compare leaderboards, and race adhoc locally. You can’t race directly against someone else over the net.
Omac_brother
As long as the single player is good, I will still get this.
Isnt there a ghost mode to race against your friends best times?
And you can also make new karts and upload them to be downloaded?
nofi
Yep to all those. The game is really, really good, loving it so far. I won’t personally miss online racing that much, but appreciate it would have been nice.
kjkg
Same. Aslong as it has some online aspect, I don’t miss the online racing. I much prefer racing ghosts too. You can practice, see shortcuts and generally take your time with it.
Omac_brother
Cheers nofi. You have dampended my fears.
Joe Dart
I honestly don’t know what they were thinking other than ‘Let’s rush this out the door as fast as possible with this decision’.
Why is it that Sony’s handheld online strategy is so poor? It could be forgiven somewhat with the PSP as that came out yonks ago, but with the Vita there’s really no excuse.
Nintendo have a much better handheld online strategy than Sony seem to, which is bizarre considering how it’s the other way round on consoles.
freezebug2
That’s crazy, I know some people that just played the game on PS3 to create mods, karts and tracks for showing off online, also most meets were based around those creations. The actual racing gameplay, although good fun, was never the big seller for this game!!
MICKY17
Disappointing news, as I really enjoyed the PS3 MP.
teflon
This is surely a huge folly on Sony’s part. They have such an insanely strong launch lineup anyway, so why are they pushing games out the door that are missing key features or have disappointing deficiencies?
– Uncharted GA is not running at native resolution, though granted, this does really have to be a launch game.
– MNR has no infrastructure mode, but it may be added via a patch. Compare this to even the PSP version, which did! Just delay it until Summer. I’d actually forgotten this was a launch game anyway!
– Similarly with Motorstorm RC. No MP on the PSV, whilst the PS3 only has split screen.
– Gravity Daze misses the Japanese launch. Surely a title for that market.
– The completely crippled nature of 3G multiplayer too. Only asynchronous play? Well. What’s the point of it then? I can save the cash and just connect via my phone. TO THE FULL MP!
I just find all these little annoyances really getting to me. The launch is utterly fantastic looking, but when you go a little deeper it’s also incredibly flawed.
Still buying the console on day 1, mind you. Just wish they weren’t in such a hurry. What games are left to launch this summer/winter?
nofi
“Uncharted GA is not running at native resolution, though granted, this does really have to be a launch game.”
That’s the case with more of the launch games than you might think – certainly Everybody’s Golf (which is even lower res than Uncharted) and a couple of others.
teflon
Really? :-\
I knew about UC:GA and Ridge Racer not being native, but didn’t realise that it went any further than that.
What does this say about all the developer chatter about how easy the PSV is to develop for? It now feels to me like it might be easy to get started, but to get it nailed, you need a fair bit more time to optimise.
Hopefully a year from now all the games being released will be native. No matter what.
kivi95
Well then I will buy Wipeout 2048.
Smallville2106
TBH I was so excited about the Vita for a long time. However, the more I hear and read. I’m finding it increasingly difficult to stay excited and get one at launch.