PlayStation Holiday Preview ‘09 – William Ho Interview

We were fortunate enough to sit down with United Front Games, one of the most promising new development studios in the Canadian gaming industry, and their inaugural title, ModNation Racers, at the PlayStation Holiday Preview Event last week. During our time with the game, we had the privilege of speaking with Lead Designer William Ho, who graciously answered our questions regarding the upcoming customizable racer.

GN: ModNation Racers definitely has a distinct visual style. What was the inspiration behind creating this visual style for the game?

WH: A lot of us are fans of urban vinyl and designer toy culture, and a lot of us collect them and we have them all over our office. What’s great about that culture is that there are so many different artist styles on display. Some are creepy, some are cute, and some are everywhere in between, and we love that style so much that we wanted to use it in ModNation Racers and empower anyone playing the game to become an urban vinyl toy designer.

GN: Along with the urban vinyl motif of the character designs, the cars in ModNation Racers seem reminiscent of the classic Hot Wheels toys. Were they an inspiration for the game at all?

WH: Oh, absolutely! All of us played with Hot Wheels cars when we were young, and the Hot Wheels tracks, and to be able to empower people to take a basic Go-Kart and turn [it] into whatever car they fantasized driving when they were young, whether it’s a sports car, a race car, a truck, a dune buggy, or a low-rider, we’ve got tons different styles of cars that you can build. Then you can take those, paint them with custom skins, trick them out with bling, and do whatever you want with them, then race with them and share them online. It’s really amazing.

GN: How many tools and customization items can players expect to have at their disposal when creating their own custom characters, cars, and tracks?

WH: The number is countless at the moment, because we keep cranking out more parts, more stickers, and more stuff for people to place on their cars, their characters, and their tracks. So right now we don’t really have a number for you, but it’s going to be a huge, huge number. As for the tools, we have a lot of tools that are industrial grade. They’re very powerful, very flexible, and we place very few constraints on them. And the reason we’re able to deliver tools that are that powerful is because all of our in-house artists are actually using the same tools, day in and day out, to create all of the characters, cars, and tracks for our game. They’re constantly refining the tools, asking for more power, and we’re delivering that power to them. And all that power will be given to the players when we ship the game so that they can enjoy the same tools.

GN: With this level of customization, players will no doubt take a great deal of pride in their creations. What methods will be available to players that wish to show-off and share their creations?

WH: Anything that you create in ModNation Racers, you can save to your hard drive and upload to the PlayStation Network. We already have a huge online database right now, and you can search the creations, browse the top creations, and other people can browse your creations and comment on them or rate them. All of those ratings get posted on leaderboards and pushed out to other players while they’re playing the game. You can also download all of them to your hard drive, so that you may play with other people’s creations. Furthermore, you can edit and remix those creations, putting your own spin on them, then re-publish them. That’s what we call a Remix in ModNation Racers, and those also get placed in the online database, but we always keep track of the original creator and the remixers, so that everyone that contributed and collaborated on that creation is given due credit.

GN: Due to the nature of ModNation Racers, and it being the second title in Sony’s Play, Create, Share line of games, comparisons are bound to be made between it and Media Molecule’s LittleBigPlanet. Was there any collaboration or communication between United Front Games and Media Molecule during the development of ModNation Racers?

WH: Yeah, we actually get along great with Media Molecule. We came up with the concept of ModNation Racers independently of them, but when we discussed the project with Sony, it just made sense, and was a perfect fit for ModNation Racers to be a part of Play, Create, Share on the PlayStation 3 because of the pioneering and momentum created by LittleBigPlanet. We couldn’t be happier to be a part of the Play, Create, Share genre on the PlayStation 3.

GN: After seeing the game today, I have no doubts in my mind that players will be able to create a limitless amount of custom creations using the tools and materials provided at launch, but are there currently any plans to expand on those with the release of downloadable content?

WH: Yeah, there will be a lot to occupy your time on the blu-ray disc when ModNation Racers ships, so players probably won’t get tired of what’s in there. However, we are working on plans for lots of downloadable content for the game, and we can’t wait to show and tell you what we have in store for the future, but we’re not ready to announce anything at this time. Stay tuned!

GN: We will! Thanks for taking the time to speak with us, and on behalf of GameNorth, I’d like to wish the best of luck to both United Front Games and ModNation Racers. We can’t wait to play it!

WH: Thank you! My pleasure!

Once again, GameNorth would like to thank William Ho for sharing his time. ModNation Racers was one of the biggest highlights of our afternoon at the PlayStation Holiday Preview Event, and we had a great time discussing the game with him.