ModNation Racers: Road Trip

This game/console's online features are no longer supported. While this game/console's online features were once accessible, they are (as of July 1, 2017) no longer officially supported and online-exclusive features may be documented as now-unseen content.

To do: Document any unused graphics, models, areas, and other content. Attempt to load Last Kart Standing. Attempt to load any remains of the assets for Career Mode. (Unpacking the game's files is necessary for this)

This page sucks. If you could make it suck less, that would be awesome. Specifically: Some of the writing here could be condensed/improved.

ModNation Racers: Road Trip is a kart racer spin-off of the PS3 game, and was a launch title for the PS Vita. There is a heavy focus on user-created tracks, racers, and karts, just like its PlayStation 3 counterpart.

Online features#

ModNation Racers: Road Trip during release was not so well known due to the lack of many features that were otherwise on the PlayStation 3 counterpart of the game. Among the features that never made it to the game, one of them was online matchmaking ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjTNJGkZE98| despite it being literally advertised on a trailer for the PlayStation Vita]), lack of which was heavily criticized by both media and users, as both ModNation Racers on PS3 and PSP had actual online matchmaking; however, the game had support for Ad-Hoc out of the box.

The game had implemented a couple of new online features, exclusive to this very game. One of these features brought full compatibility with any UGC content uploaded from the PlayStation 3 game, which meant you could download Mods, karts and tracks from ModNation Racers for PlayStation 3 on a PS Vita. Another new and exclusive feature was the Postcard feature, which allowed the user to take pictures from their PlayStation Vita (or alternatively choose any picture or screenshot from their gallery) and pose their Mods and karts so they can take pictures with them. These could be uploaded to Facebook from the console.

ModNation Racers: Road Trip also used the PS Vita's location information obtained through the internet for the ModExplorer feature, which allowed you to obtain certain items inside of the game by visiting different places around the world. These items are no longer obtainable unless you purchase the Unlock Everything DLC. You could also obtain gifts from other PS Vita players in your area via Near.

The only way to play with other players online (not via AdHoc) was through asynchronous multiplayer in Time Trial mode. Players could upload their best times on any track in the game (either downloaded or those included by default), which saved their time as a ghost. This feature was already present in the PlayStation 3 version of ModNation Racers, but in ModNation Racers: Road Trip, you could save your times in a section dedicated to times uploaded by people from your region.

San Diego Studio released a total of just two updates for ModNation Racers: Road Trip (in the American version; in the European version, it was only one update), which made near to no changes to the game aside from adding and improving Ad-Hoc functionality and fixing very little bugs. Otherwise, ModNation Racers: Road Trip was an extremely short-lived game, and nowadays its mostly known as a failure in the PS Vita's library, mainly for having no online features available whatsoever, and for being a very poorly optimized game; compared to the competition, it was also an extremely lackluster game.

All online features for ModNation Racers: Road Trip were permanently turned off on July 1st, 2017, 5 years after the original release of the game. It is still possible to play ModNation Racers: Road Trip online thanks to the Ad-Hoc feature.

Changed Assets#

ModNation Racers: Road Trip featured nearly all of the content from ModNation Racers for PS3, but optimized for the PS Vita's lower spec hardware; though some of the content went by a lot of changes besides the mere graphical one, and some of the downloadable content that was once available for the PS3 game, is either unused or never made it to the actual game.

• The content from the Progressive DLC, including the Flo Mod and Progressive kart, were changed in ModNation Racers: Road Trip as the Advanced Mod and Advanced kart, possibly due to licensing issues with Progressive Insurance; however both assets for the Mod and kart do exist in the game files and can be obtained through the Unlock Everything DLC. Some other changes were the "I HEART (LOVE) INSURANCE" sticker, which now says "I HEART (LOVE) LUNCH". The Progressive logo on the kart has also been changed to a bunch of drawings of different foods.
• The downloadable content for other PlayStation characters, including their respective karts, are compatible with ModNation Racers: Road Trip, but most of their assets are missing. Nathan Drake is the only DLC character based on a PlayStation franchise outside of ModNation Racers that appears to be fully functional, whereas the others rely on nonexistent assets that existed on PS3, but were never ported to ModNation Racers: Road Trip, most likely due to licensing issues. Although somehow, textures for these characters seem to fully exist in the game.

Clank costume (PS3)	Clank costume (Road Trip). Notice the eyes.

Ratchet costume (PS3)	Ratchet costume (Road Trip)

Sackboy costume (PS3)	Sackboy costume (Road Trip)

Sweet Tooth costume (PS3)	Sweet Tooth costume (Road Trip)

Kratos costume (PS3)	Kratos costume (Road Trip)

Nathan Drake costume (PS3)	Nathan Drake costume (Road Trip)

Helghast Soldier costume (PS3)	Helghast Soldier costume (Road Trip)

Sly Cooper costume (PS3)	Sly Cooper costume (Road Trip). Yeah, this is not a joke.

• As expected, any mentions to original developer and creator of the franchise United Front Games, like the URL of their website in Tag's kart, and the letters "UFG" from his goggles, have been changed/removed due to this game being developed entirely by San Diego Studio. Otherwise, any other karts and Mods are basically identical to their PS3 counterpart. Also removed from the game were any UFG-made tracks (like Mod Circuit, Mt. Pain and Switchback Valley), including any tracks from downloadable contents, despite them being used in promotional material from the game and appearing in screenshots from the game itself (For example: when exiting track creation mode, there are a bunch of screenshots showcasing the player editing Alpine Drop).

Unused Assets and Leftovers from ModNation Racers#

Despite San Diego Studio's claim that this game is not a port but a completely new title, ModNation Racers: Road Trip is virtually identical to the PS3 version in terms of gameplay, physics, graphics, and functionality, only poorly optimized for the PlayStation Vita and without a proper career mode and online matchmaking.

The internal files of ModNation Racers: Road Trip also include several files that come directly from the PS3 version of ModNation Racers, including unused graphics files, story mode animation files, unused story mode characters (as well as placeholder characters), and possibly more that haven't yet been documented.

Career mode related files#

• While .BIK files related to prerendered cutscenes do not exist due to the complete absence of RAD Video Tools from the game, the real time .BIN animation files for the career mode of ModNation Racers can be found at the ANIMATIONS folder. It is unknown if these .BIN files do still work.
• Unsurprisingly, career mode exclusive characters like Tag's Mother, Tag's Crew Chief and Richard Short, while unused completely, they still exist on the game.

To do: Check if animations files in the ANIMATIONS folder still work (unpacking the game is required for this.)

• All assets used for the prerendered (and real time) cutscenes still exists in ModNation Racers: Road Trip, including the MRC broadcast scene, the Gary Reasons and Biff Tradwell puppets, young Nato and Diablo's tricycles, the Conservative Motors' contract, Richard Short's cell phone, among other assets.

Mentions to .BIK files#

• In the files for ModNation Racers: Road Trip, there is no folder denominated as MOVIES, where .BIK files are normally stored. However, all of the prerender cutscenes in .BIK format are mentioned in a file named NISEVENTDEF.XML, located at a folder called NIS, which actually stores more values related to career mode cutscenes, such as particle effects that play during the pre-race cutscenes related to an Elite Mod introduction.

Unused graphics#

• In the folder FE_KART, there are a few unused graphics that are direct leftovers from ModNation Racers on PS3.

Map Related Items#

• The files for ModSpot, the main lobby that was featured in ModNation Racers for PlayStation 3, still exists on ModNation Racers: Road Trip and can be accessed with a special track that might contain the files for ModSpot, or the whole lobby in itself. The theme associated with ModSpot's assets (Theme99) also exists in the files.
• The assets for Mother's paintshop, which appears exclusively on the career mode of ModNation Racers for PlayStation 3, are also on ModNation Racers: Road Trip and can be accessed with relative ease, too.
• There are a bunch of testing maps located at ROM/TRACKS created by San Diego Studio which are left unused, some of which come from ModNation Racers for PlayStation 3. Some of these test maps could've possibly been used to test the track drawing feature. Some others are possibly related to theme testing.

Unused Translation Entries#

• The respective .XML files for languages at the LOCALIZATION folder of the game have a lot of mentions to unused/nonexistent features of the game, including strangely mentions to the Split Screen feature, as well as mentions to features of the online mode for ModNation Racers PS3, and even mentions of ModSpot. There's also mentions to the names of certain story mode items, such as the story mode karts (examples: Speedwagon SUX600D, Conservative Motors Sedan 2/3, etc).

Beta Leftovers#

• Somehow, even prerelease assets from the first game exist in ModNation Racers: Road Trip, such as the broken Item Pod props.

Unused Hex Values#

• As well as on the PS3 version of the game, there is a value related to the infamous rejected Last Kart Standing mode, which can be found by decrypting the eboot.bin file and reading its contents in a hex editor or any other software. It is unknown whether this mode does anything or not.
• Surprisingly, there are a lot of hex values inside of the eboot.bin file which do actually refer to online matchmaking. It is unknown if any matchmaking/online multiplayer values even work to begin with.