First things first, I LOVE ModNation Racers. The way you can create your racers and karts, and race them around your own tracks. The single player story with comedic commentators, giving you laughs between races. And of course, like all games of this type, it’s far more fun with your friends. What’s not to love?
Phil writes, "The kart racer: a sub-genre in the racing game genre that generally features video game mascots and colorful cartoon characters competing in speedy races against one another for the sole goal of crossing the finish line in first place. No doubt Super Mario Kart made this sub-genre popular and put it on the map, but for every well-done Mario-branded racer, there are countless others that fall through the cracks. For this purpose SPC brings back The Tuesday 10s to list ten underrated and under-appreciated kart racers from a wide swath of developers and franchises."
I agree with ModNation Racers. I did have a good time with what I did get to play at a friends some time ago. Nickelodeon Racers though? If it’s anything like the original, that’s a hard pass…
Don't agree with Mario Kart tour as it's not underappreciated. It's just literally not great. Everyone has tried it.
On the other hand ModNation, Mikey's Speedway USA, CTR, and LBPK I agree with. Though CTR with the rereleases recently hasn't been all that underappreciated and that with Diddy Kong Racing are my all time favourite ones. I think sonic transformed is very under appreciated though.
Outside of CTR ModNation is the most underappreciated because the game was amazing and don't think it even sold a million. But the community was always pretty cool. Creating was never hard. But it could be as complex as you wanted it to be so it was for everyone. I'm still praying Sony makes a ModNation Racers sequel for PS5 as the only issue the game had imo was load times and not being 60fps
I hope they do as well, I had the game on ps3 but never spend a good amount of time with it which I kind of regret, would love to give it another go.
There's a little known kart game called Bears Can't Drift that had a bunch of potential, was fun to play, but low sales that left the dev to simply abandon the project before fixing technical issues with the game.
They really did have a good game on their hands, but they gave up before it could reach full potential.
I remember just only playing the demo of a game called speed punks that game was fun
VGChartz's Adam Cartwright: "The racing genre has always felt like a perfect fit on handhelds, thanks to offering bite-sized sessions and being able to hide technical flaws behind blistering speeds and enclosed environments. It provides a large amount of variety too, from immersive sims to light-hearted kart racers (and my personal favourite, drift-heavy arcade racers!), meaning there’s usually something for everyone to enjoy.
Anticipation was high that the Vita would follow in the PSP’s footsteps as a handheld offering an unrivalled selection of racers, from muddy WRC titles to the clean racing lines of Gran Turismo. Beyond the initial months things didn’t quite pan out like this, but there’s still a nice spread of games available to cater to anyone’s tastes – and thanks to the addition of backwards-compatibility with PSP and PS1, the Vita ends up with possibly the largest selection of any console in the last 10 years, even if it's not all running natively on the hardware."
VGChartz's Adam Cartwright: "As the Vita provides a brilliant portable legacy experience for Sony’s other two home consoles (PS1 and PS2), I decided to focus this article on the next in line – the PlayStation 3. Unlike its predecessors, the PS3 far outpaces Vita in terms of power, on top of being built on an extremely unique architecture which meant porting between the two wasn’t as straightforward as it could have been. Still, thanks to engine compatibility and some brilliant efforts from developers, the two consoles shared numerous pieces of software and, where this wasn’t possible, others sought to provide bespoke experiences instead. Altogether this means that the Vita does a pretty good job at providing a portable PS3 experience."
“Sony may have advertised Vita as ‘console quality on the go’, which irritated many buyers due to games with reduced framerates and graphical elements being released“
Why would some people complain about that then but praise the Switch now for doing the same thing?
“The PS3 might not be remembered as Sony’s finest hour in gaming”
I and many others see PS3 as Sony’s best console
The Switch still offers the same game though. Sure in docked mode the game may have run at a higher resolution or framerate, but the game was still the same in terms of content. Most Vita games were altered from any console equivalents (unless they were smaller indie titles). Look at Call of Duty for example, which made a horrible transition and this was a game that they bundled with the Vita and tried to promote. That's not to say there weren't some great titles on Vita though. Killzone and Uncharted were great and closely mirrored the console games while offering a new story.
I remember the early fps hype on the vita was murdered after a few botch jobs (Borderlands, Call of duty, Resistance) which helped put some nails on the "Portable triple A" coffin
Killzone Mercenary was awesome tho
Because Switch is much larger device + a gen years later device, and despite of that the gap isn't that much.
The PS3 was the most revolutionary console of its time, Blu Ray, built in WiFi, bluetooth for its accessories, the Cell
It was a multi-media powerhouse
Same ... anyone who disagrees is confused.
@neon...you bring up COD at least that game made it to Vita. We still have yet to see it on Switch I might remind you.
When developers are asked if COD would make it to Switch...they laugh... because it's funny.
but look at Doom and Wolfenstein 2 for example. Those games are identical. Sure some sacrifices to resolution or framerate had to be made, but it's still the same game. That was my point. No larger studio games made the transition over to the Vita and remained the same, they were usually stripped down versions much like Wii versions of games compared to the 360/PS3 at the time.
That pitiful CoD game on vita was pure trash, you cant even use it as an "At least"
"Why would some people complain about that then but praise the Switch now for doing the same thing?"
Because the Vita never delivered whereas the Switch delivered day 1. BotW was easily big budget AAA console quality and seeing as it won GOTY it's clear that it succeeded. If we look back at the Vitas initial games from Sony like Uncharted they felt like discount versions of the prior releases in the franchise. BotW stands alongside the top releases in it's franchise. There's a clear difference there.
The Switch is doing the same thing but succeeding. That's why it gets a pass. There were a few gems on the Vita but they were so few and far between that they couldn't be impactful and help the system grow.
@protagonist
Then refute what I wrote. List all the games that are comparable to a big budget AAA game that would release on the PS3 and how they helped the Vita sell.
I heard comment that the unused port on Vita was originally planned for Vita TV function.
But Sony decided to take it out and release a separated failed Vita TV...
Aww... Vita could have been the Switch, but Sony got greedy and worried Vita will capitalize on PS4 market...
