Today is an interesting time for racing games. With titles like Forza and Gran Turismo, we find a surge of realism through simulation-style gameplay and physics. Some, like the famous Need For Speed series, keep mostly realistic but focus more on arcade-style physics in an attempt to make it easier to play. Others, such as the Burnout Series, keep some realism but add an air of insanity through what the focus of the game becomes. Even further along, at the other end of the spectrum we would find the likes of Mario Kart, games completely setting aside realism of almost any kind except for the driven cars still having four wheels (sometimes).
All of these titles and more have something in common: they are very popular in the United States. However, there is one aspect that most racing games have that is not quite as popular. There is a part to every racing game which is utilized, and usually enjoyed, but is almost never the focus. The part to which I am referring is the time trial.
I'm not saying that no one in the United States enjoys a good race against the clock, but what I am saying is they enjoy it now and then. If you can play online, you don't want to do a time trial. Even playing alone, if you can race against some AI controlled cars, you usually do that instead of the time trial. It can be fun, but is it the point of the game? Usually not.
Enter a game which is and has been massively popular in Europe for many years now. Trackmania. A game that revolves around the time trial. Because of this, it has skated mostly under the radar in our country because it's not most people's cup of tea. However, I find this very sad, if I am honest, for if utilized correctly, it is one of the most competitive and comprehensive racing titles you will ever find.
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| Half-completed loops pointed at finish lines standing above ground level. Yes. |
The game thrives on user-creativity. It is based upon a building block track-constructing system where the player can create their own tracks and then not only race on them, but upload them to servers to either share or invite others to play with them. The great thing about this game is that it is almost the same experience playing online as it is playing alone. I wouldn't call online better, it's simply another enhancement.
The reason for this is the way multiplayer works. Yes, you can have more traditional styled races, but it often doesn't work that way.
Players in a game can have a set time limit for the duration of a given track, and will then have as many chances as they want within that time limit to set a winning time. If you have a course that takes only 45 seconds to complete and you have 3 minutes to do it, it can become a king of the hill style game. If the course takes several minutes to complete and you only have half to a whole minute allotted above that time, the stress of being more careful and completing with fewer resets takes over.
Why do I use the term "careful," you ask? I could describe the insanity that can come from the minds of the brilliant track creators that are out there, but I think a couple of pictures sum it up better:
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| Looks easy enough... |
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| Holy complicated track, Batman! |
If any of you decide to go get this game after reading this and want to try this second track,
here's a link for you to download it. Sadly enough I couldn't find a link for the first. The point either way is that the tools are available for you in this game to create some amazing things. The second track's fastest completed time is almost 16 minutes. That is a time by masters of this game. There are other tracks which are far shorter but nearly impossible to complete without a reset. I played a track which had a ramp leading to a hovering finish line across the map. To hit the finish, you had to leave the ramp at an exact speed at an exact angle. Figuring those parameters out can take some practice. When you finally get it though, it's so satisfying.
Trackmania is not a new game, first released in May of 2004 (in the US). The original divided into three different environments: Rally, Desert, and Snow, each with their own set of gameplay physics.
The rally environment had a mix of dirt and tarmac for terrain. Handling was about what you would expect for a rally environent: handling was loose, grip was lower in the dirt and a bit better on the tarmac. The speed of the cars was relatively lower compared to other environments. The rally cars were nimble and quick off the line from a standstill though.
The desert setting is full of darting turns on narrow roads in the desert, with a car similar in speed to the rally and snow cars. The desert car, however, can find itself up on two wheels if you turn to hard. The suspension is incredibly loose.
The snow cars feel like go-karts on dry surfaces, griping to the road and turning on a dime. Going through a corner feels like threading a needle. Once you hit a section of the "snow" surface though, that all changed. What you experienced over that terrain was lack of almost any grip at all. This made for some interesting strategy on how to approach these sections.
A year later, in May of 2005, Nadeo and Ubisoft released Trackmania Sunrise, which brought updated graphics and features, as well as 3 additional environments: Island, Bay, and Coast. One of the significant features added was the ability to have tracks run at sunrise, mid-day, sunset, or at night.
The Island environment features supercars on wide open, mostly straight circuits. The cars have great grip in a straight line but tend to drift around the corners, a task which can be tricky to master. The speed is most realized in the Island setting.
Coast cars are fairly low speed but feature very low grip to match, therefore turning Coast into the drifting environment. The roads are very narrow, though, similar to the B and C roads you would find in Great Britain, making successful drifting require a very light touch and sight ahead of, not just at the corners.
The Bay world is also high speed, though a bit lower than Island. Bay cars grip under regular turns almost as well as the old Snow cars, though not quite. When first switching to Bay from other modes, one will find themselves oversteering in the corners much of the time and ending up on the inside wall of the corner more often than not. Bay cars also stay airborn somewhat longer than the other two variants of Sunrise.
In early 2006, Trackmania Nations was released. Unlike any of the games before, Nations was a Freeware game. It only had one environment, Stadium, but that was more than enough. The stadium environment featured cars resembling futuristic F1-style cars, matching the racing emphasis in Nations. The online community exploded at the dawn of Nations, and the competitive nature of the game took off right with it. Stadium cars were the easiest to pick up and play, and the environment that Stadium was build around was very conducive to the multiplayer experience. The airborne aspect of the game held a big part in this world. Tracks were designed to feature aspects of an F1 race mixed with the lunacy of a platform racer. Combine it with the fact that it was free to own, and Nations became a classic.
In 2007 Trackmania United was offered, which combined all seven of the previous game variants, with a few upgrades. Late in the same year, the "Forever" update was released, adding more tracks, options, and features to both United and the freeware Nations. The update mostly updated graphics and network capabilities.
Additionally, any tracks that were created by users could be uploaded to the
TM Exchange to share, as well as started on a server and raced by anyone interested. The more artistically savvy took the game even further by creating skins for the car, such as found
here in the Trackmania Carpark, as well as other places throughout the web. For no charge, you could change any of the cars into anything from a floating pyramid to a Toyota Supra. The better skins even came with engine sounds to match the skin rather than just use the stock car's sounds.
The game did become popular enough for Nintendo to pick up some rights and make versions for both the Wii and 3DS, but the primary gameplay has and probably always will be on the PC.
In August of last year, Trackmania 2 came out, the first variant being "Canyon," as seen above, with announcements of a soon upcoming "Valley." The graphics are far updated (though still not in line with Forza or the like), the track builder was streamlined, and the cars are a little more straight-arcade like to drive. Everything that makes Trackmania what it is remains, though. The online support is there, the format is the same, and the airtime is long.
Trackmania is not a simulator. It is not a straight arcade game. It is an experience unlike most other racing games you will find. Is it the best game ever made? I would have to say no. Is it worth picking up if you have never played it, even though it is an older game now? Absolutely. This one will remain in my collection for years to come.
