LittleBigPlanet Karting

[Mabster]

The beta ends on July 31st (well, August 1st at 4:00 AM ET). When it ends, is the NDA lifted, and are we allowed to talk about it?

The NDA has been lifted, you can vent Blzer.

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2012/07/30/sack-it-to-me-the-first-disney-princesses-arrive/

"In celebration of all of the fantastic content coming out of this beta, we’ve decided to lift the beta NDA for LittleBigPlanet Karting!"

Sent from my LTEvo

[TheBleedingRed21]

Re: LittleBigPlanet Karting

As a beta tester, I got to admit, this will be a must buy for me. The customization is great like it was in littlebigplanet. I did not create anything myself, but played courses that were created by users and they were excellent.

The game does feature powerups that you run over such as in mario kart and those included:

Boxing Glove - You ride on a boxing glove and whoever you run over with it, they are stunned and spun out.

Rocket Missile - You kart turns into a missle and you control it. You get a super boost and when you run over a speed burst, you go even faster. If you wreck or slow down, the rocket dissapears. Only lasts a few seconds.

Lightning - You surround yourself with lightning and when someone runs into it, they are shocked. Only lasts a second or two.

Rocket 1st - Shoots a rocket at the guy in 1st place

Rocket - Aim at anyone you chose that is visible, and fire a rocket at them.

There are some others but I kind of forget.

Any time you have a power up, you can save it and if someone fires something at you, you will see a rocket icon behind your kart and when it turns into a shield, if you fire your power up, it will block the item from hitting you.

Unlike Mario Kart, when you are hit by a power up, you blow up (unless its the boxing glove or something similar) and respawn like you did when you respawned in LBP.

You can customize your kart, sackboy, and are givin your own Earth and Moon that you can fully customize the look of and design your courses.

The game is not very hard, but not easy. A lot of times I finished 4th place and above in harder races against CPU.

Did not get into any multiplayer but I can only imagine the fun with real opponents.

If you love Mario Kart, Mod Nation Racers, this is deff a must buy. Going to get only better with more users being able to create tracks and deff adds to replay value.

That is about all I can remember right off, hopefully others will post there time with it as well.

[Blzer]

Re: LittleBigPlanet Karting

Awesome, then here we go!

Basically, I was just jotting notes as I went along. I don't think they're in any discernible order, but you'll get a gist of how this game is based on these:




OBSERVATIONS

- This game is exactly that... LittleBigPlanet Karting. It has the presentation of LittleBigPlanet with an added element of karting, similar to ModNation Racers but not exactly the same (read all notes below). The Pod is exactly like LBP, the level selecting is exactly like LBP, the community features and settings are exactly like LBP, the Popit menu is exactly like LBP, and the Sackboy editor is exactly like LBP. Even when you respawn in races, you appear out of a "ground pod."

- Framerate is about the same as LBP, and compared to the MNR world, everything feels more "floaty," much like LBP itself.

- It's a racing game, so joining online means you have to start at the beginning of a race (obviously). If you join "too soon," you get to drive around and preview the course a little bit beforehand until the race starts.

- Online play has held up well so far. I understand there's virtually no one on the server, but It's good that so far there are no real lag issues that LBP and MNR can be plagued by. It's a good first sign.

- Load times are significantly better than LBP or LBP 2. There were times in that game when I thought those games were just passively frozen (moving parts, but not progressing anywhere). In this game, I've never had any sort of thought it would just hang forever while loading.

- Hovercrafts bear no difference from carts, other than a visual one. You can still "drift" and "jump" with them.

- Unlike MNR (and like LBP), you don't double-tap X to jump high, you hold onto it. However, it's also your drift button, so you will enter a drift with a high jump if you don't choose your direction beforehand. Should you choose it beforehand, you will take a little hop, like MNR.

- Great drifting tutorials for casual gamers (who never would in MNR, limiting themselves TEMENDOUSLY); everything else tutorial-based is poor or unmentioned.

- Drifting, in general, is a lot like MNR (where you can still loosen and tighten your turn). I think the calibration of the drift is a little tigher in general, though. In other words, you are "turning more" with your drift than you would in MNR. You can't loosen it almost to the amount of a straightaway like MNR.

- Drifting in LBPK and MNR are the same: hold onto gas and drift at the same time, and you can drift forever until you let go of either button (as long as you don't hit a wall). Well, MNR for PS Vita added a new feature in drifting where you can hold onto the brake button while drifting to better finesse your drift for sharper turns. MNR for PS3 didn't have it, and it's a shame LBPK doesn't have it either. Pressing the brake button while drifting will just cancel your drift.

- Weapon icons are constantly cycling their weapon type, so they're more "random" than not like MNR on PS3 (whereas MNR: Road Trip on Vita has a specific color assigned to a weapon bubble, even though they might change on you at any time, though they normally don't).

- There is a 1st/2nd/3rd indicator over those respective racers while driving; that's a nice touch when you're kind of lost in the mess of who is placed where while working toward your race.

- The game's sense of speed is a lot slower than MNR, and steering seems a lot more controllable/serves a larger purpose than MNR, especially given the amount of straightaways and wide roadways.

- Cooperative mini games aren't really the most fun single player/online experience. They seem to be the best for split-screen multiplayer.

- Battle mode seems to serves its purpose, but it's not really as fun/challenging without an added difficulty of NOT trying to get hit... unless it's simply for the sake of not allowing an opponent to score again. The point system is simply who gets the most attacks.

- As expected, races are most often won by the use/misuse of weaponry, as opposed to actual racing skills. The game's sense of speed and track width don't necessarily make this a challenge to traverse through. Of course, I've only played through moderately easy levels.

- "Boost" is handled differently in this game, at least compared to MNR. You don't have a bar to build up, but there are certain ways to activate your boosting. One way is through drifting. The longer you drive, the greater your boost will be coming out of the drift (if you hit a wall or get blasted by an opponent, you lose any and all boost gained). There are only four tiers of "boost upgrading" while drifting, so there's no real reason to hold a drift for too long. Even if you could, each boost doesn't seem substantially worth holding onto the drift. You can also get an automatic boost by doing spins off a jump/ramp, there are boost pads, and certain weapons are meant for "boosting" as well, if not just jumping ahead on the course.

- On that note, since you can't build boost, you don't use it for things like shielding. Shielding is done with the use of an attack weapon. When an oncoming bullet is right behind you, you get to use your weapon to counteract it and defend yourself. You will see your Sackboy automatically turn his body around (while still driving forward) to ready himself for the attack.

- Likewise, you can manually choose to fire weapons backwards by pressing Down on the D-pad or left-analog stick, and your Sackboy will turn around as mentioned above. To face him forward again, press the Up button. Which reminds me: mines can also be thrown forward if you hold Up on the D-pad or left-analog stick before firing said selected weapon.

- Because the D-pad is used for such things, there isn't any way to control your character's facial expressions in-game (like that matters while racing when you can't see his face anyway). You can, however, change his facial expressions and wave his arms while in your Pod (the exact same way that it's done in LBP).

- I can't yet tell if there is an incentive to come off one drift immediately with another drift because I don't think you get to use your boost you earned from the first drift (EDIT: Okay, you do get your boost... but you don't get to control when to use it, it's used immediately). On that same token, there is little incentive to come off a drift immediately before a predestined jump, because the boost you earned will be moot.

- You can still knock other opponents that are on either side of you (it's more of an LBP "slap" than an MNR "skid" into them) to slow them down, but there is no boost reward for it.

- I don't yet understand what bubbles are used for in races, aside from maybe trophies/challenges in the retail version's story. They only seem to be a distraction in multiplayer races. Perhaps they help you build XP or something. No in-game stickers to speak of, yet.

- This game really punishes the leader with a bullet designed specifically to attack the leader, like the blue shell in Mario Kart. Only, it is more easily accessible and it doesn't seem to attack anybody else along the way. That said, the leader always has to purely play defense, and always needs a weapon active for blocking attacks.

- Weapons don't have tiers for upgrading (i.e. running over multiple weapon icons), can't be used in multiple ways (MNR let you drop them as mines; MNR: Road Trip let you trade it in for boost), and you can't lose your weapon in any way (getting hit, falling off the track, etc.). There is a specific mine weapon though, and like I said before, there are certain weapons which you can fire backwards.

- Like MNR, you can use the Select button to destruct/respawn yourself onto the main racetrack if you ever discourse yourself. You can also false-start out of the starting gate by pressing L1 before GO. I don't know if I'm just poor with timing it, but I have yet to actually boost myself out of the gate (even though I'm well aware it's not designed to be a boost button regularly). I'm assuming we should be able to boost, but I have yet to time it right.

- Neat little thing I noticed, you can click L3 to toggle the size of your OSD map. R3 honks your horn, which isn't really much of any use I guess.

- You can't use the Popit menu while spectating an online race (either before you start or after you finish), so all character customization has to be done before entering the race.

- Online races will consist of both online players and AI drivers, so you're not just potentially stuck in a two man race. Don't take the AI guys for granted, either... they can really haul if you leave them be.

- The LBP world may be cuter than MNR, but it's certainly not as enticing from a racer's standpoint. Yeah, it might attract the casuals more, but there's a lot about it that detracts from the atmosphere of an action racing game that causes intensity. This includes the game's pleasing LBP-like music. It may just be the beta, but you cannot put your own custom music in the game (it can play in menus, which is really hilarious when you start playing punk rock).

- Alongside the "LBP world" nitpick (the fact that the atmosphere doesn't really appeal to me as much as MNR's world did for a racing game), the HUD is just very unintuitive. All of the cartoony, flat-layerd interfacing doesn't really help you grasp what it is you have or that you're doing. It took me forever to realize I was supposed to grapple certain areas off of jumps, for instance. It might take me another "forever" to completely understand what every weapon is and how you can fully utilize it. The simple fact that there are bubbles in races for the sake of having them is a little bit of a head-scratcher.

- The 3D option is not available in the beta, so I can't comment on that.

- There is no split-screen multiplayer available in the beta either, but a loading menu indicates the retail version will feature story mode on a co-op level as well (up to four players, I believe).

- No word yet on whether the game features an actual "story" rather than just levels, like LBP2 with the random dudes and the Negativitron (like if there is an ulterior motive for Sackboy to be racing/competing).

- I think online levels have the potential to be great, if not much better than the offline levels for the added challenge of the track design itself. A lot of people are also joining races online in custom levels, assuming they are top-of-the-charts kinds of levels. MNR had a horrible set-up for online play and joining a race. This game does it tremendously better.

- This game should not replace massive fans of Mario Kart or ModNation Racers, IMO. This is an alternative take of the racing genre, very similar to MNR, but also very similar to LBP. That's what it will attract: LBP fans who never gave MNR a fair shake. Overall, it's much, much more accessible than MNR simply because of the LBP familiarity and the game's speed. Yes, weapons are a huge part of the game (and because of the track design, would be pretty boring without weapons), but assuming the framerate held up just fine, four player split-screen should be extremely fun.

- This would have been a nice Vita game, all the same.




BUGS

- I've found myself placed on the same starting block as another racer before. This might happen if you're a road vehicle and they have a hovercraft.

- The beta has now frozen twice while loading up a new level in a multiplayer event coming off a prior race.




PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS

This game is too close to ModNation Racers and too similar to LittleBigPlanet that I do not see a reason why it should replace either game if you own both of them. The best solution, in this case, would be for Media Molecule to find a way to implement this "mode" into LittleBigPlanet 3, and incorporate their other modes to be a little more as a part of the story, as opposed to just bonus levels.

However, it's not just that. After having played MNR again last night on PS3, I can very easily say it is the more potent, competitive, and enthralling racing game of the two. Although we're only talking about the beta, LittleBigPlanet Karting simply does things differently, as listed above. Whether or not you like the differences is up to you, but the way you that races are dictated are a completely different story for both games. The fact that MNR has a boost meter means so much more when it comes to racing tactics, and I admire that amount of control in my game. I like that I feel I was the contributing factor to my win or loss.

It seems that user tracks allow for a lot of creativity, and they can truly be massive. I think this game will excel in random online races, but I'm sure they are cooking up a story/campaign/career for this game as well, which is just not available in the beta. As it stands, if you own ModNation Racers and are proficient with its gameplay, no matter how much you like LBP, I would recommend passing on it. It's definitely "dumbed down" in comparison where those who would have trouble winning racers actually have a chance to in this game. In some ways this is better, but you don't really feel like you have ultimate control of your driver in that case.

Of course, this is all just one man's opinion, and a lot of people's responses I have seen were very positive to the beta. I feel like if I never played MNR, I would be all over this game and then some, so it's not like I'm passing because I don't like it. The fact I have a game to directly compare it to, though, lets me balance everything out and weigh my features to my liking. If anything, the main problems with this game are that it's not being released for Vita, and that I hope this doesn't mark the end of ModNation Racers games.

[Mabster]

Re: LittleBigPlanet Karting

I think LBPK focuses way more of it's attention on the creator and leaves the racer out in the cold.

The default racing speed is slow and races are won depending on who picks up what weapons when. Racers of any skill level can win races because of this luck factor. In MNR there are highly skilled racers that are nearly impossible to beat because of their racing lines and boost/shield management abilities.

The way LBPK does automatic boosting out of drifts and jumps takes a way a huge tactical aspect of MNR that I enjoy. The racing portion of LBPK is almost and exact mario kart clone, going so far as directly ripping weapons from Mario Kart. e.g. the boxing glove = Bullet Bill, exactly.

Creators have total complete control over the level when it comes to racing as well. They can customize everything about how the kart drives (top speed, acceleration, handling, etc.) of the karts that spawn out of every portal, making them all the same or even trolling the racers and making each one different, i.e. one racer faster then every other. They also have the ability to determine what your kart looks like if they want. So the racer who spent a bunch of time customizing their kart can join a race in when the creator forces you into something else.

Creators also can make custom weapons as well (saw one that makes you shoot electric fish) and can determine what each weapon pickup gives you.

Create mode is clunky with very few one button short cut options, instead making you go through many layers of your popit to do simple commands. Hopefullly they streamline this. Create is also missing some features that LBP2 creators have come to love and expect. Long rewind/backup and corner editor to name a couple of the top of my head.

Blzer's post is extensive and I agree with most of it, but I'm going to use some of it as a jumping point for my own thoughts.

- It's a racing game, so joining online means you have to start at the beginning of a race (obviously). If you join "too soon," you get to drive around and preview the course a little bit beforehand until the race starts.

This is a nice touch, you have 60 second to preview the course or sit around the starting line and have a good slap fest for a bit. Much better then MNR lobby. The devs also designed this preview as a sort of preloading to break up load times. The preview loads, and then when the timer finishes the countdown the track and racers load again.

- The game's sense of speed is a lot slower than MNR, and steering seems a lot more controllable/serves a larger purpose than MNR, especially given the amount of straightaways and wide roadways.

SO SLOW, but again it can be customized by the track creator.

- Hovercrafts bear no difference from carts, other than a visual one. You can still "drift" and "jump" with them.

I feel that every kart is kind hovercrafty. The game is very floaty and no matter what kart body or suspension I'm using I feel like I'm floating just above the track rather then racing on it.

- Like MNR, you can use the Select button to destruct/respawn yourself onto the main racetrack if you ever discourse yourself. You can also false-start out of the starting gate by pressing L1 before GO. I don't know if I'm just poor with timing it, but I have yet to actually boost myself out of the gate (even though I'm well aware it's not designed to be a boost button regularly). I'm assuming we should be able to boost, but I have yet to time it right.

The starting line boost is actually holding accelerate and L1. Let go of L1 at the go to boost off the line. Seems a little backwards, but it's there.

- Neat little thing I noticed, you can click L3 to toggle the size of your OSD map.

You can do that in MNR also.

- Online races will consist of both online players and AI drivers, so you're not just potentially stuck in a two man race.

I didn't like this. MNR allows you to turn AI on/off or set the number of AI racers. Hopefully it's just a beta thing.

- No word yet on whether the game features an actual "story" rather than just levels, like LBP2 with the random dudes and the Negativitron (like if there is an ulterior motive for Sackboy to be racing/competing).

There is a story of some kind in there. The Hoard seems to be craftworld's new threat. Certain 'tips' during loading screens mention LBPK lore regarding them and all the AI racers have Hoard in their name, e.g. Lord Hoardbottom or Sir Hoardsworth (those names my not be exactly correct, but they're something like that).

- A lot of people are also joining races online in custom levels, assuming they are top-of-the-charts kinds of levels. MNR had a horrible set-up for online play and joining a race. This game does it tremendously better.

I disagree with the "MNR has a horrible set-up for online play" bit. Trying to join an XP room can be cumbersome as the game only places you into a room that is currently in the lobby waiting for the timer to countdown. Joining custom track rooms however would place you in a room with an open spot even if the rest of the room was racing. Of course you're at the whim of the host and his track choosing abilities.

LBPK does some things with online play well, but also sucks at certain things too. Top of the list is a lack of a modspot or proper pre race lobby. A track can have a maximum of 8 racers on it but our only gathering area is in our pods which is limited to 4 people. So if I want to race with 4+ of my friends (which I do on MNR a lot) we have to start a track with 4 of us and then send invites to everyone else once the track preview has loaded.

After the race is finished everyone is presented with a voting screen with 5 choices: race track again (default if nobody votes on anything), three random tracks from the story/campaign, and last choice is to return to your pod. If we all want to race a different custom track we all have to return to pod, then join somebody's pod that is choosing a new track or wait for an invite to the new track after it's been chosen. This constantly fractures players and friends apart. They need to fix the amount of people in a pod basically making it a host like MNR or at the very least make the voting screen choose between tracks hearted by the racers or something.

I'm done for now, but I'll probably be back.

[Blzer]

Re: LittleBigPlanet Karting

I never knew MNR had the L3 toggle feature. I guess it was because I was clicking so much in this other game, trying to figure out if there were any secret buttons and such.

It looks like you ventured into the create mode a lot more than I did. I attempted it for a short while, but since I really only played this the first day (maybe hopped into it a little bit the next day as well), I didn't have enough patience to complete a track and such. That said, I didn't know that you could decide the speed of the karts and all of that.

As for MNR, what I mean is that you join a host who chooses the race, as opposed to choosing a race where you will then join a host. I suppose it's just my opinion in that regard, but it's no matter. As long as I can join a race, I almost couldn't care less.

Thanks for telling me about the "boost out of the gate" feature and how you control it. I never would have known, otherwise. Also thanks for clarifying about a story.

So do you think you're going to get this game? Do you still own your copy of MNR, and do you have a Vita with MNR: Road Trip? I might get it if enough people here do, but I can't justify spending $60 for versions of this game that I already possess, in a sense.

[Mabster]

I do still have MNR, no vita, and right now I don't think I'm getting LBPK. I'm 90% racer and 10% creator on mnr (one official hotlap track to my name) and I think the way lbpk caters way more to the creator then the racer won't hold my attention enough.

Half of my fl is made up of people that I met on mnr and more then half of them are in my position too. Probably not getting it but holding out slight hope that they tighten/speed up the racing,rethink the boost/shield system, and change the weapons system somehow so it's not such a blatant Mario kart clone.

Sent from my LTEvo

[42]

Re: LittleBigPlanet Karting

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/U2M-IsA_dKI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[42]

Re: LittleBigPlanet Karting

@yosp

All costumes you purchased for LBP or LBP2 can be used for LBP PS Vita and LBP Karting for no extra cost. Quad Cross Buy!

[Mabster]

Re: LittleBigPlanet Karting

Expanding on what 42 posted above about costumes

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2012/08/16/gamescom-2012-littlebigplanet-recap/

*Here’s the fine print: There are a heck of a lot of costumes and it’s going to take us a little while to get them all tailored, pressed, and packaged up. You will get some at launch and then we’ll be adding the rest later on, but rest assured you will get them!

We’re not going to be able to bring either of the Assassin’s Creed costumes (the Ezio Auditore Costume from Assassin’s Creed Revelations and Ezio Auditore Costume from Assassin’s Creed II) or the April Fools Fragrance Costume (Hessian Sackboy Fragrances) to LittleBigPlanet Karting at this time, but all the other downloadable costumes will be available...

[LingeringRegime]

Re: LittleBigPlanet Karting

Any impressions for this? IGN gave it a 5 and Gamestop gave it a 7. Need OS opinions because they trump everything else.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/11/06/littlebigplanet-karting-review

http://www.gamespot.com/littlebigplanet-karting/

[Mabster]

Having played the beta extensively and reading how nothing changed from that experience, that IGN review is spot on from my point of view.

[Burns11]

Re: LittleBigPlanet Karting

I couldn't play the beta much at all, just wasn't very fun. Gamefly shipped it though so I guess I'll check it out a little more.

[Blzer]

Re: LittleBigPlanet Karting

Having played the beta extensively and reading how nothing changed from that experience, that IGN review is spot on from my point of view.

Agreed. Just didn't have that much fun with it.

[DickDalewood]

Re: LittleBigPlanet Karting

Yah... I really enjoy LBP, but the beta of this was awful IMO. Boring, slow, lame weapons, and the LBP art style doesn't fit a kart racer.

Should have just made a Mod Nation 2...

[Burns11]

Re: LittleBigPlanet Karting

Mod Nation, both the art style and the name, made me have very little interest in the game. I did have interest in LBP Karting though, and that's probably the point of doing it instead of Mod Nation 2.

Maybe they should have extended the "Playstation All Stars" into being a new header, with Battle Royal being a fighter, and Karting as the racer.