Hello, Mark here back for another developer post. Since we last talked, our North American and European Public PS3 Betas have exposed ModNation Racers to the world. These previews generated lots of great feedback and have helped us focus on key issues in these final months. I’m happy to say that frame rate, load times and race cameras have all improved.

In my last update, I talked about some of the more advanced features of Track Studio that we’ve used to create the tracks for the game. Today I’d like to talk about some of the cool props you can add to your tracks to make them fun, challenging and memorable! Dynamic Props are interactive objects that you can place on your track to enhance the gameplay.

We’re including a load of exciting things to place on your tracks, such as barrel launchers that shoot crushing or exploding barrels.

There are also ModBots, robots that move back and forth across your track and attack karts that get close. Some shoot flame, some will bounce racers off the track if they aren’t careful. They can be scattered anywhere, so it’s a nice touch if you want your racers to watch the road.

We’ve also included ramps for cool jumps, and launchers for shooting the kart over huge distances. We have barriers that pop out of the ground to test a driver’s agility, and flame vents to make any careless driver extra crispy! We designed them to be customizable, reusable and effective in a variety of different scenarios. The devilish setups we’ve put in our tracks are just the beginning of what can be done!

Highlighting a Dynamic Prop in Track Studio and pressing the Square button will pop up a dialog where you can adjust settings on how the prop behaves. For instance, you can dial in the height of a ramp, or change the direction of the Twister (a giant rotating platform). Adjusting these things gives you the power to customize your track to make it as crazy as you want.

Dial your ramp just right or you might hit some humps!

These dangers work well with gameplay incentives such as item pods or boost pads – give the racers a reason to brave the danger! For instance, use a Devastator (a giant stomper) and boost pads in combination with a popup ramp to let them jump clean over it, versus the faster, more treacherous route under the Devastator.

A whole gauntlet of Devastators to slalom through!?!

With so many Dynamic Props, and so many possible combinations, I can’t wait to see what the community comes up with.

Until then, check out our new trailer (above) that gives you a taste of all the insanity you can create with the toys we’ve built for you.