Tag: trackmania

2256: TrackMania Turbo Demo Impressions

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Those who know me well will know that I’ve been a huge fan of the TrackMania series since the original release of TrackMania United, and have spent many hours on the various updates to United and the eventual follow-ups TrackMania 2 Canyon, Valley and Stadium. So it was with some excitement that I realised that the next official sequel, TrackMania Turbo, was releasing this week, though I was torn on whether to pick it up for console (PS4, in my case) or PC, which has traditionally been the home of TrackMania.

After playing the PS4 demo for a bit this evening, I think I’m going to grab the PS4 version. I’m very impressed with how at home it feels on console — much of the clunkiness of the PC versions, particularly in the menus, has been tidied up considerably, making it much more controller-friendly, and the addition of a variety of local multiplayer modes makes it eminently suitable for console play. It, so far, seems to be a highly polished product, which addresses what has always been my main criticism of the series as a whole: the fact that in terms of gameplay, it is wonderful, but in terms of interface and user-friendliness, it has traditionally been a ridiculous mess, only made worse by the gazillions of mods server operators apply to their custom dedicated servers, making the game screen more complicated than your average MMO come raid time.

PC players on Steam seem to be a bit salty that TrackMania Turbo has stripped out a number of features they’ve come to take for granted: specifically, the ability for players to run their own dedicated servers and install gajillions of mods that make players’ screens look more complicated than your average MMO come raid time. And while this is a bit of a shame from the perspective of the game’s flexibility — something that TrackMania has always prided itself on — I don’t think it’s going to hurt the complete package, and in fact it may well be good for the series as a whole. TrackMania Turbo will serve as the friendly face of TrackMania, in other words, while the truly hardcore still have United and TrackMania 2 to play and mod to their heart’s content. Both of those games are still a hell of a lot of fun to play, after all — and surprisingly good looking, to boot, especially considering their age.

But what of TrackMania Turbo then? How does it shape up compared to its illustrious, if clunky, predecessors? Judging from the five tracks available in the demo, extremely favourably. In fact, if the whole game handles in the way those early tracks do, I’m confident that it will become a new favourite arcade racer.

The thing I like the most is the unabashedly arcadey handling. We’re talking Ridge Racer-tier drifting here: release the accelerator, steer around a corner and slam the gas back on and you’re going sideways. Hit the brakes and you’ll find yourself in an even tighter drift, allowing you to get around even the most ridiculous of corners without losing anywhere near as much speed as if you’d have to drive “properly” like in boring driving sims.

The game screen, sans custom mod clutter, is clean, clear and offers ample feedback on your performance as you play, including split times, worldwide and regional rankings, and fun little extras like arcade-style counters showing how far you’ve jumped or drifted for — a nice addition that gives the game a very “Sega” feel.

I was debating whether or not I wanted to grab the game today. Playing those five tracks in the demo has made me quite happy to pick it up, though; I can see it being a whole lot of fun, and I hope it’s a big success, helping to show console players the joy of this wonderfully silly but skillful and creative series.

#oneaday Day 139: Tr-Tr-TrackMania

Those who have — ooh. Hold on. [gets momentarily distracted by the new WordPress interface that has apparently launched today.] Pretty.

Ahem. What was I saying?

Oh yes. Those who have known me for a while will know all about my love affair with Trackmania United Forever Star Edition, née Trackmania United Forever, née Trackmania United. And indeed my Steam usage statistics would seem to back this up — with 24 hours’ playtime recorded on it, and nothing else close. Granted, Steam doesn’t seem to have tracked my playtime on quite a few games I know I’ve played through to completion, but 24 hours on a silly driving game is pretty substantial, and it just doesn’t get old.

Yes, it’s unpolished. Yes, certain aspects of it are inaccessible. Yes, it doesn’t tell you about a good 95% of the possibilities it offers anywhere in the documentation — but somehow, despite all this, a huge, dedicated community has sprung up around the game and has been supporting it and driving it forward ever since its release. So much so, in fact, that it’s spawning a proper, bona fide sequel, along with two exciting-sounding companion games.

TrackMania 2 Canyon looks like it will be a lot of fun from what I’ve seen so far — though the Canyon subtitle does make me wonder if it’ll have the variety of environments and vehicles that United offers, but it’s the other two ManiaPlanet games that intrigue me more, if anything. The possibilities on offer in ShootMania and QuestMania, offering the facility to create FPS levels and RPG games respectively, are potentially limitless. And while little has been revealed about how — and if — the three games will interact, the fact that they share a common community portal in the form of ManiaPlanet is immensely intriguing and offers some very exciting possibilities for those, like me, who are interested in game design but whose experience with building tools is limited to Lego, Scalextric and the Wolfenstein 3D map editor. (I remember trying to make a Duke Nukem 3D level once. That didn’t end well, much like several efforts to make a Doom level work in any shape or form. And those games weren’t even proper 3D. I like tiles. Tiles are good.)

For those who have never experienced the joy of TrackMania, it’s worth remembering that the game’s probably most oft-used environment — the stadium — is available as a completely free game to download, with a significant amount of content and the ability to make your own tracks as well as play online. It’s not often you see that sort of generosity from a developer offering what is essentially a “demo”, but there you go. Steam users? Knock yourself out.

Okay. That’s enough TrackMania ranting for this year. See you next year.

So I’ll see you on the loop-the-looped circuits, no?