Now we know what happens when you combine a racing game with a platformer and a puzzle game.
Sometimes a game is so unique, we want to praise it on that merit alone. Sadly, originality only goes so far when it comes to game development, which TrackMania United is a perfect example of. Like the previous TrackMania games, TrackMania United features high-speed racing on wild tracks with a physics engine that lets you pull off amazing, gravity-defying stunts. And like the last few titles in the franchise, it suffers from the same problems.
More than Just Racing
The appeal of TMU is easy to understand. Who doesn't want to speed around tracks that have loops, huge banked turns, ridiculous jumps, and other wild obstacles? The typical track in TMU looks like an oversized slot car racing track designed by an insane scientist who's been mainlining Mountain Dew for the past six months. These tracks actually deserve to be called "extreme".
There are three play modes in TMU and each of them showcases racetracks gone wild. The first mode is the most basic: race from point A to point B as quickly as possible. In the puzzle mode, you start with the game's built-in track editor, and are given a start point and an end point on a map and a limited number of track pieces. It's up to you to use the few track pieces you have to link the starting line with the finish line, and then drive the track you just built and complete it within a given time limit. The third "Platform" mode gives you a limited number of retries to reach the finish line while falling off the track as few times as possible. The courses in this mode are easily the most devious and play more like something from Super Monkey Ball than a racing title.
The obstacles that lie between the starting line and the finish line aren't the only features that make TMU different from other racers. For one, there are no collisions in this game. This doesn't matter much in single-player modes because you're usually solo unless you choose to race against a ghost for timing purposes. It also keeps people from being griefers and purposely ramming other racers off the tracks. Racing in TMU is hectic enough without worrying about hitting other cars or getting hit by jerks. When you come into contact with an AI car or a car being controlled by another player online you'll just harmlessly pass through them. You'll also be able to reset your car at anytime at the press of a button. You can take your car back to the most recent checkpoint it passed or go all the way back to the starting line. This is handy for when you fall off the track or lose your way in some of TMU's trickier challenges.
Tricky tracks aren't the only challenge. There are seven different cars such as snow cars, rally cars and American cars. Each handles differently and represents another challenge to master. Top-heavy American cars will sway like crazy as you steer left and right and will even flip over if you take corners too quickly, while other cars will catch crazy air if you're not too careful. Combine these cars with the 200 different tracks and you've got one big mountain to climb.
TMU sports a clean look and isn't a big system hog. The levels have an impressive draw distance and have good variety including everything from bayside cities to deserts ands tropical islands. Unfortunately, the game has an annoying menu system that requires a lot of unnecessary clicking and is just clunky overall. We played most of the game with an Xbox 360 controller, but found that no matter what controller we used the cars were twitchy, and we couldn't find any way to adjust the sensitivity.
The Art of Racing Without Racing
As you may have figured out, the heart of TMU isn't like other car games. Most of the time you're either trying to beat the clock and get the best track time or trying to figure out how to actually make it to the finish line. This doesn't change much when you go online with the multiplayer modes. Most of the multiplayer modes have you racing for best times or most laps completed in a given time limit. Only the Round mode and Laps mode have you actually starting at the same time and racing opponents directly. The other modes such as Time Attack and Team have you racing either individually or starting at different times.
Both offline and online modes have the same strengths and weaknesses. Learning the tracks is easy at first, but as the difficulty ramps up you'll find yourself racing tracks over and over again and learning how to finish races solely by trial-and-error. There's just no other way around it unless you're some sort of genius. Later tracks will have less-patient gamers slamming their desks in frustration as you'll often have to make blind jumps or drive off cliffs and just hope you land in the right place. Matters get worse online where you'll play against tracks designed by TMU masters who have created mind-boggling challenges that will break the will of any gamer who isn't an elite TMU player.
Perhaps something like a suggested racing line would help. You can enable up to three ghost cars to race with you in the single-player mode, with one car representing a speedy gold medal finish, the second a silver medal finish, and the last a slow bronze medal finish. These do an okay job of helping you figure out the tracks, but if you fall off once or lose your way, they won't wait for you. Maybe if they left a trail or if you had a dedicated "training" car to stay with you learning the ins and outs of TMU's tracks would be less frustrating.
If You Build it They Will Race
The online community for TMU is very active and dedicated. There are tons of downloadable user-created tracks and there is a powerful track editor which you can use to build your own. The tools are very simple to use and the single-player puzzle mode is a great way for you to familiarize yourself with them. By using the Mediatracker tool you'll even be able to piece together little mini-movie intros and endings for your tracks. It lets you add text, sounds, camera moves, smoke trails, fades, and other effects to these in-game videos. You'll also be able to customize the cars you race in with paint jobs, decals, and other decorations. Everything you create can be shared online.
However, there is a small catch to all this online stuff. If you want to download new tracks or replays of record-holding time trial laps you'll need to dish out Coppers. These bits of virtual currency are obtained by playing in the solo Official Mode where all your times are officially recorded. You can also get more Coppers by sharing your own creations online. All this is done through ManiaLink, a network within a network that acts like a mini Internet that's focused on all things TMU.
Like Popcorn
As stated in the beginning of this review, we love that TMU is such a unique game. There are moments of ingenious track design and the puzzle mode is genuinely challenging. Our biggest problem here is the unforgiving "trial and error" nature of the game once you get past the first few newbie-friendly levels. We don't mind a challenge, but we don't like having to redo a single segment of a single track a dozen times just to get it right, never mind setting a new time trial record. Another problem shows up due to the lack of collisions. You can easily lose sight of your own car in the mass of other racers and end up driving right off the track into some dark crevice.
Despite its drawbacks, there's no denying that TMU is fun, especially in the beginning when the courses are short and you're discovering all the cool track designs for the first time. As you play there are plenty of moments when you'll pull off unbelievable stunts and just be in awe of what the physics engine is capable of. Sadly, this awe is eventually replaced by needless frustration that could've been avoided with the simple addition of a racing line or some other feature to help you find your way. TMU is a fine diversion for quick game breaks, but not much more. In a way, it's like popcorn, enough to be a snack or even an appetizer, but you won't get a full meal out of it.
©2007, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Crazily addictive, Trackmania United probes the very depths of vehicular and driver abuse
Take the wildest Hot Wheels course ever built, multiply the insanity level by about a gazillion, and toss in a heaping helping of some of the most twisted vehicular booby traps ever conceived. Add a few thousand more courses just like it—dozens of which you've constructed yourself—and top it off with a ridiculously active online community just ready to toast your best scores, and you have a recipe for mania---Trackmania, that is.
Trackmania United is the most recent in a series of Trackmania games developed by French design studio Nadeo. It's a culmination of sorts, merging the environments from the original Trackmania (2003), 2005's Trackmania Sunrise, and 2006's Trackmania Nations, and incorporating multiplayer/online enhancements and visual perks. Indeed, if you haven't before taken the plunge, and even if you have, this is the version you want merely by virtue of its size and scope.
But what is it?
By simple definition, Trackmania United is an arcade racer. But it's so much more.
Hugely popular in Europe where it's been lionized as one of the greatest driving games in recent memory, but only recently gaining a strong following in North America, the Trackmania series has always emphasized, for want of a better description, lunacy. Like 1991's benchmark arcade driving game Stunts, it demands that you drive you car through all manner of condition and contraption on your way to the checkered flag. But there's one important distinction from the ancient Stunts—these stunts are really out there.
Sure, it delivers standard loop the loops and jumps, but it's the size and magnitude and difficulty of each that really hits home. Air time is a huge factor in this game, and the physical sensation of hurtling over some of the game's more gargantuan chasms and screaming over sinewy ribbons of track elevated hundreds of feet in the air really sticks with you afterwards. To say your stomach does the same somersaults it does when you hop aboard that monster roller coaster down at the county fair is not overstating things.
And that's just the beginning. Imagine hitting the crest of a hill with absolutely zero visibility ahead, when out of nowhere you're expected to jump a Grand Canyon-size chasm, spin sideways through a couple of floating hoops, and land on a microscopic piece of track that isn't even lined up with the one you've left behind. Even worse, there's a massive pothole square in the middle of that landing pad threatening to drop you a couple hundred feet to the cold, hard ground below. Adding to your misery, there's a power boosting strip right in front of you that'll instantly slingshot you straight forward like Evil Knieval's rocket car, first into thin air and then splattering you into the side of a sheer cliff face, a la Wily E Coyote. The thought alone is enough to make a grown man wail like a little baby.
But not all the tracks ask you to defy the accepted laws of gravity. Indeed, the game offers up seven different global environments and seven different classes of automobile—one for each environment. Sometimes, the courses involve straight-up speed, and ungodly amounts of it. Sometimes you'll find yourself on a snow bank or in the middle of thick, desert sand, struggling just to keep your car or truck from bogging down in the muck or flipping onto its roof. The variety is tremendous, and the excitement level is almost always high.
As for vehicle physics, let's just say Trackmania United won't contend for simulation of the year. Though its SUVs and trucks feel admirably distinct from its coupes, which in turn feel far less nimble and much slower than its open-wheeled Indy-style racecars, there's none of the subtle handling characteristics or inherent difficulty of a sim.
Generally, the vehicles respond quickly to your input and neither oversteer nor understeer. They drift through turns, and they are controllable whilst in the air. In short, they're a heck of a lot of fun, and just about anyone can drive at least moderately proficiently within a few minutes. And in a game like this, where the challenge lies elsewhere, you wouldn't want it any other way.
Hardcore realists should also note the game doesn't feature authentic perks such as a setup garage or upgrade shop. Truth is that each of the vehicles within each of the classes are identical—save for their paint jobs, which can be customized quite brilliantly at any time—and aren't available for mechanical modifications of any sort. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily, because the onus is placed squarely on the driver to pull every extra ounce of speed out of his car. Maybe Bernie Ecclestone and his mega-buck Formula 1 concept—where long, drawn-out processions are the rule—should pay attention.
Moreover, the "no mod" rule really affects the online experience. Unlike the online component of most other racing games, where you inevitably face drivers who've set up or modded or cheat-ified their cars so spectacularly that you have no earthly chance of winning, Trackmania United is certainly a more equitable proposition.
Nadeo has also enforced a "no-crash" rule, whereby competitor cars are seen merely as ghosts. Though some will find the concept annoying, we bet just as many will jump for joy when they realize they can race in a multiplayer environment wherein idiots and bullies can't ruin the day by bashing and smashing their way around the courses. Of course, no crashes also means no damage modeling, and that's a shame.
Interestingly, Trackmania United isn't always about being first to the checkered flag. On some of the more, er…imaginative courses in the game's "Platform" mode, you can take as long as your little heart desires—the goal being to simply make it to the finish line with as few deaths and re-spawns as possible. This is much harder than you might think, particularly if you're attempting some of the merciless custom track concoctions floating around online. Words cannot do justice to your peers' level of cruelty.
In "Puzzle" mode, driving and track building disciplines are blended together into a unique IQ-style challenge that forces you to utilize your brain cells and problem-solving abilities as much as your racing ability. Using a predetermined number of track "blocks," you try to piece together the most expeditious route between static start and finish points. The more puzzles you complete, the more difficult—and the more devious—they become.
Indeed, to some players, the game's track building utility may be the most intriguing aspect of all. There's really no limit to the size and style of the tracks you can build, and the construction process is just about as easy as it could be. However, like virtually anything else of consequence within the game, building a really good track will cost you. More on that in a moment.
So, what is it that will compel Trackmania returnees to swing by for another go? Sure, the game looks a little better than past editions. The frame rate is exceptionally fast throughout, slowing only momentarily when encountering an online traffic jam. The scenery is colorful, busy, and so varied from one environment to another you may think you're playing a different game. The lighting is superb, in that over-the-top way that so perfectly suits wild arcade racers. The vehicles are nowhere near as detailed or as animated as those you'd find in a game like Codemaster's DiRT, but they effectively look the part. And certainly the latest Trackmania is a humungous affair—essentially combining all prior releases into one huge super-game. Yet the format and gameplay is essentially the same it's always been.
Fact is that the big draw for veterans may well be the slick integration of the massive online community. The moment you launch the program, you're logged in online. You can see all the latest stats and times—highlighted by those within your own geographic region—check all the newest events and happenings, and watch the latest uploaded replays (a great idea for those who want to know not just why, but how, they suck). Any of the records you set, or any of the gold, silver, and bronze medals you win during your official laps are immediately noted and logged. And if you do want to join an event, you're just a few seconds from doing so.
Yet the real addiction—the sense that you need just…one…more…fix—comes from the game's cost and reward structure. In Trackmania United, almost anything of consequence costs you "coppers," the game's virtual currency. When you race on a new track, for example, you have unlimited practice rounds, but your "official" laps will cost you a preset number of coppers. Yet it's during those official laps, and only during those official laps, where you can set records, establish your name in the online community, and win even more coppers. The more coppers you win, the more cool new stuff you can do, the more stuff you can download, and the more blocks you can use when building a new course. It's hardcore betting, without the gambling.
Sadly, the game doesn't sound particularly wonderful. Though the music changes right along with the environments, the song selection is limited. Though the engine notes vary from vehicle to vehicle, crash effects are almost inaudible. Other mechanical sounds are seemingly non-existent, and there's no real audible sense of the car that surrounds you.
©2007-07-18, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved