I’ve always written off Trackmania, but since switching over to a laptop I’ve been looking for some fun and low-spec games to populate it with. All my consoles are packed for a move, so I decided to grab the recently released TrackMania Nations Forever and give it a shot. Why not, since it’s free?
The first impressions were definitely good. I had expected some shoddy Linux-esque racing clone, but TrackMania actually looks pretty good and scales really well to my laptop’s specs. It certainly feels like a professional, fully realized title right from the first menus rather than some basement hobby project.
One of the things that threw me about TM is that, from the shots, it looks like a formula type racing game. Actually, it’s an arcade racer with crazy jumps, track suspended in midair, and a focus on speed. The best way I’ve heard it described is something like Hot Wheels, actually. In solo play, the goal is to beat set times and win medals, with increasingly difficult tracks. The cool thing is that you can race a ghost of the medal time, and also a ghost of your best time. The game even tracks your progress vs other players locally and around the world.
What I like most though is that hitting the backspace key will instantly restart the race with absolutely no delay at all. I’ve certainly had to hit it quite a few times since a single mistake in a time trial race means you’re not going to beat the goal time. If there were a delay, I’d probably lose patience with it far quicker. Haven’t tried the online play yet, but I plan on it soon. Really, for a free game, you can’t ask for much more. I’d even consider getting the full Trackmania United Forever game, but I think Nations alone has plenty to satisfy most players. It’s far better than I was expecting.
