Well, is there anyone who doesn’t know the very entertaining TrackMania series? It never was a really illustrious game, but you could pass some hours/days excellently with it, especially if you could get some friends to it. If you don’t know it, I would like to introduce a fully free episode of the series, called TrackMania: Nations Forever.
Before dissection I have to lay down something: This series is not noted for its excellent crash model or simulation of reality. There is no reality, because you can hit any hairpin bend at 200. But reality is not the point – fine game experience and instant action rather is (of course, if you are a fan of simulation, maybe you won’t like it that much, but this is a personal problem – Garcius).
As Florent Castelnerac, producer of Nadeo said, they never had planned any tuning option, because simple things are more amusing in themselves. That means you don’t have to start a career (you don’t start from zero), but you can blast right into the middle of the sauce, and prove what you want on a track.
3, 2, 1 AND GOO!
The manu is simple, and after setting resolution, sharpness and anything you want, the party is on. You can choose a difficulty setting from White, Green, Blue, Red or Black — evidently Black is the hardest one. And on every difficulty setting there are lots of tracks waiting for you to conquer them. There are around 85-90 (!) tracks in the game.
Before starting a race you have to decide what type of medal you want to get: gold, silver or bronze. It is like a second difficulty setting for the given track. I think everyone realized the goal of the game: to be the first who wheels into the finish. Regarding the opponents, soon it will be clear that they are not real but so-called “ghost cars”. Perhaps you cast a questioning glance to the display now and wondering about what can be good in it? Exactly just that: you cannot crash into your opponents, so even bad players don’t have to restart the race after one or two minutes. You need only your reflexes, because as the title says: the point is the track of the race.
Regarding the tracks we have to admit that the developers did a beautiful work. The only problem is an “I already was here” feeling on (almost) every track. You can feel like being in a stadium, in spite of every big (maybe a little bit illusory) differences between the tracks — for example, one is full of bends and jumpers, and the other is a mess of muddy roads. Another one has sections like boxes. The finish line is a red line which shoots you out to the big nothing.
As I mentioned, there is no complaint about the graphics of the tracks. The fundamental ideas are fine as well, because there is no great overlapping between the landscapes, moreover, there are various scenery. The developers must have great imagination.
IT’S EDITABLE!
If you got over the joy/sorrow of the races, then you can start editing. The game emphasizes customization, and you can personalize your car. You can set up almost everything, but as I mentioned, there is NO tuning: You can change only the appearance of your vehicle. With that, you can do anything you want, stamp, paint and form it as you like. You can use the flag of almost every country on Earth, and you can make your own flag. The only annoying thing is that you cannot turn the camera during customization, so you have to be contented with the sideview.
The other customization opportunity is the track editing. This comes together with the game and if you have a little soul for it, you can make pretty good tracks (it’d better if you are a race maniac strategist). You can settle road sections, waters and everything. You can even set up the period of the day when the race happens.
MULTIPLAYER IS EVEN BETTER
It’s always important to mention the multiplayer mode. It is the best part of the game, thanks to the numerous servers. The number of registered players already went above nine millions: in the moment of editing this article it means exactly 9,602,984 players, and in theory you can find a great number of players from your own country. The support of multiplayer mode basically contains the well-maintained chat servers too.
To sum it up: In spite of the errors, I think, Nadeo created a dateless and enduring game. The number of registrations is almost taking over the throne from WoW, and it tells something about TrackMania being a good game. You can play it endlessly, because after practicing enough in single player mode, multiplayer comes with new fun. Anyway, the game is appropriate for casual and hardcore gamers alike, because it can be a great partygame too — even the insistent and fanatic players can find difficult challenges in it.
All in all, if you look behind the customization and the huge heap of tracks, you can discover an interesting thing. It seems the creators of the game wanted the players to outdo themselves, let’s say; players should race against themselves.
—NoeL—
Title: Trackmania: Nations Forever
Publisher: Digital Jesters
Developer: Nadeo
Hompage: http://trackmaniaforever.com/
Style: car racing
What I liked:
nice, fine, elaborated
relatively good music
fast, instant action
various difficulty
What I didn’t like:
too simple; you need only reflexes
can be monotonous; car sounds feel the same
frequent repetition of textures
No comments
Trackbacks/Pingbacks