[Source Destructoud]

Upcoming ModNation Racers patch adds 'casual' difficulty

1 hour ago - 11:00 AM on 07.13.2010   |   Nick Chester

7 comments

ModNation Racers is a pretty good game with a few problems holding it back from true greatness. Was one of those issues that it was too difficult? United Front Games seems to think so.

It's been revealed that an upcoming patch for the game will add a "casual" career difficulty that makes your AI-controlled opponents less "aggressive." Admittedly, I had only played through a chunk of the career, but never found the game to be brutally difficult. Was this a problem, and is this something you think will help you enjoy the game more?

I think part of the reason I had never finished the career has less to do with the difficult, and more to do with the fact that I'm impatient. How about doing something to fix the game's obscenely long load times, UFG?

ModNation Monday: Community Picks and Patch Update [PlayStation Blog]

Man, I'm actually pretty glad for this.

You can call me terrible at the game, whatever, but I could get past the third race in the career and that just made me stop the game altogether.  I made it through the first races easily and even got all the extras but I just couldn't beat the third race.  I would be in first until the last half of the last lap and the AI would just unload on me making it pretty hopeless.

I'd block and dodge the first few blasts but that doesn't help when they all unload on me.  I eventually threw the controller and stopped playing the game altogether.  The end of a game should be that hard, not the third damn race.

If this makes it so I can at least get to the end of the career, I might actually play the game again.

Ouch! Im glad I skipped this game... I figured it would come down in price really quickly like LBP...

One thing I don't get is the word 'casual'. It kinda still doesn't make sense to the people who actually want to use that setting because they probably don't identify themselves as such. It makes more sense to use intensity settings like 'relaxed' 'frantic' 'intense' or whatever because it actually identifies with the gameplay experience the person is looking for without passing or implying judgement.

I enjoyed that this game was not Mario Kart easy but as a trophy whore I do appreciate that this will make coming in first in every race much easier not to mention dumb down my competition helping me reach those darn 100 online wins

Lol the difficulty made the campaign fun. I got the trophy for doing the campaign in first place in all races and doing all the bonuses but boy it was a bitch.

I too think difficulty is fun, but the beginning of a game shouldn't be so difficult that it turns you off to the rest of the game.

I think they forgot they were making a Mario Kart, Little Big Planet type game where you want those casual players to get hooked, not the uber hard core people.

It sucks enough to be in first the entire race up to the very end and to have every AI character cheaply unload everything on your but it sucks even more when it's the very beginning of the game.

That encourages me not to go through the campaign and it doesn't encourage me in any way at all to play online.  If I can't beat the campaign I surely can't beat people online, right?

So....they forgot to introduce a reduction on loading times? Or did they see this as the "clear" priority and immediate concern?

Sony......come on. Is it just me or as of late they have been failing on an unprecidented scale? They aren't maintaining many games anymore and people are running riot on Uncharted 2 with glitching!

Makes sense.  The basic AI in the later stages was clearly way too tough for a more casual player - i.e. my kids - so this makes sense.

As for the load times, from what I've read about the engine those sound hard to improve to me.  I think it would take a fairly hefty patch changing the core engine or the developer managing to achieve a big leap in optimization - and given they seemed to have pushed optimization hard to reach the times that do exist that doesn't seem likely to me.

Pity, as the load times are a bit on the long side.

I finished the carrier mode in 5 days (1-2 races were difficult to finish first)....lol some people are crap at playing games

I guess people must be having a problem with the game if they released an update like this, but it really isn't that hard. Took me about 7 hrs to come first in every race. And I don't consider myself very good at racing games.