WOOT 1st Place 3times in a row!!!! :)

didn't get online yesterday, trying it again now

I gave up on the beta after 30-45 minutes of frustration.. I just wanted to race someone in a quick race.. First I ended up being the only one playing a track, no ai either - well that was boring.. When I finally somehow ended up in a quick race lounge I had to wait 5-10 minutes for the other players to finish a race.. Finally! however, then I lost connection to the server... -.-

Am I doing something wrong here? :/

L1 = Boost

O = Use your boost for a temporary shield.

Now to see if the crappy servers are functioning

Had so much fun today

came 3rd in a ranked tournament

I can use the weapons a bit better now

USING X TO DRIFT & GET MORE BOOST POINTS IS SO FUN!!

This game is a must buy, may even be more fun than LBP in the end.

Where MAG's beta for me was disappointing & boring, this beta is amazing & fun

SONY have another LBP level hit on their hands for sure.

I need to play more online and races to comment fully, as I decided to play with the editor first, but so far I'm pretty impressed.

Editor seems really good and breaks down into three elements:

1 - car customization - mainly looks so far as I can tell at this stage

2 - driver customization - just looks

3 - track customization - the big one, and a lot of fun.  Seems very well designed to support everything from easy to complex design ambitions

Focusing on the track editor, you can make something that looks good pretty easily (more so that LBP due to some clever stuff plus the obvious focus of racing over LBP more open structure).   For example:

1 - edit terrain, make some dips and mountains in approx 5 seconds.

2 - lay a track as though driving, easy and you can lay down a nice track very fast

3 - get the editor to 'auto populate' your track with boosts, add trees, buildings, etc.  (this is clever as you jump to a polished looking level without any drawn out effort or time).

4 - have a test drive, have a test, race, etc. without leaving builder

5 - save and publish if you want

Of course, if you want to you can place every tree, warp the angle of the road, etc. and basically take a long time over your track - but I'm impressed you can build something good in a very short time with minimal effort.

As for the racing, seems fun but nothing amazing.  Playing AI is okay in a Mario Kart sort of way, with speed boosters, jumps and pickups to attack opponents with but nothing too astounding although fun enough.  Playing online seems better, but I've only had a couple of races so far so need more time to really get a feel for it.

There's lots of leader boards for times, races, popular tracks, etc. plus a store in place but currently inactive - hello micro-transactions by the look of it.

Publishing levels is very fast and easy, as is downloading levels, plus other content like other players custom karts and driver designs.

Graphics are clean and look pretty good to me, with a distinctive look in the same manner LBP had (albeit a different one).  Even throwing a lot in my track I couldn't seem to cause any major hiccups or slowdown.

Now, so far I only have three gripes, none of which are major:

1 - the load times between major activity feel a little long.  Not terrible, but a little longer than I expected.  Hopefully they'll continue to optimise this as much as possible

2 - frame rate feels a tad slow overall.  Nothing again that leapt out at me but it just felt like it was there.  It almost felt subliminal in you get my drift.

3 - if you play with complex cliffs, etc. then mix them with complex roads you can get the occasional gap in the joins.  Also there is some pop in of objects depending upon density.

Overall though pretty good and certainly my kids loved it, particularly how easily they could create then race on their own tracks.

Looks like the full game will have a career mode plus splitscreen but this was turned off in Beta.

Also, like I say I haven't played with online enough to comment more there, plus with limited ability to race wtih AI I couldn't really judge the AI's capabilities overall.

I'll be doing an official article on beta impressions.

But for now, based on the beta...8.5/10.

I don't want to go into any detail at the moment. That'll be in the article. But basically, it's fun, the track creator is easy to use, the frame-rate is irritating, the load times are abysmal.

Double tap X = Double Jump

Just thought I'd throw this in there. 

I think ModNations is another example of Sony being so dumb at the business. Why the hell they didn't put sackboys in those cars? And allow those DLC costumes ets. from LBP to have effect on this game, too? Holy cow, this sort of synergy is so obvious, but no, not to them. Crap.

/rant

It's not that simple. Both games were made by different studios, neither of which are owned by Sony and so if sackboy or any form of Little Big Planet was used from the start then royalties would have to be paid to Media Molecule for every copy, reducing the profit margin. Plus Media Molecule would likely have needed some staff overseeing the project and they're only a small developer. I'm sure we'll see Sackboy as some DLC later on.