It was recently announced that the PS Vita ModNation game, ModNation Racers: Road Trip, will not have head-to-head online races, and this decision was met with a lot of criticism by the fans and critics. However, the devs have given the reasoning behind this baffling omission, saying they wanted to try out the new capabilities of the Vita, and that they did not want to “rehash old features” and still “evolve online functionality”. Huh… kinda weird, don’t you think?
“The team here in San Diego created an impressive list of online functionality to take advantage of the WiFi/3G and GPS functionality,” said studio director Erich Haas.
“I know there are some of you that are disappointed that ModNation Racers: Road Trip doesn’t let you play head-to-head online other than ad-hoc. But we really wanted to evolve online functionality and take advantage of the PlayStation Vita’s unique feature set in new ways,” he said, after offering descriptions of the game’s online leaderboards, time trial matchmaking, ghosts and local-only multiplayer features.
“If all we ever did as developers is rehash features that have been done in previous games, we’d still be entering passwords instead of using save files and you’d have to start the entire game over after you lost your three lives (extra 1-ups aside),” he said, comparing the decision not to include online multiplayer in MRRT with the universal decision replace clunky password saves with more intuitive save data systems in the 1980s.
“While online head-to-head has been a mode used in many games in recent years, we focused on making a game that is crafted for how portable games are most often played-in quicker ‘pick up and play’ sessions multiple times in a day. Your online interaction, competition and socialisation will always be when it’s convenient for you.”
So, top evolve multiplayer, you decided not to have real time online matches? Real smart.
