Well, what the hell. Thought I might as well fire up a discussion on this great racing game and see if anyone else has even heard of it.

The game TrackMania United is actually a boxed version of a sort of Collectors Edition of the three previous TrackMania games, all of which were highly unrealistic, build-your-own track style arcade racers. All three have been given updates, with some new building blocks in all of the environments and a massive update to the Stadium environment, previously available only as a free downloadable game.

TrackMania is pretty different from anything you've tried before, especially if you've been stuck in the NFS series for several years. It's not about the car, which you can't change in any meaningful way: this means you can give it a new paint job, but you can never adjust the suspension or engine. There's also no AI included, only pre-recorded "ghosts" which do nothing but show you the way through the default tracks. (You can't ram them, instead you simply pass through them.) While you can race online, the same applies: you cannot affect other drivers at all. This makes it mostly a game of skill, since you can't improve your car so that you have an edge, and you can't sabotage your opponents.

You can play on the default tracks (something like 100 are included in the game) but the real draw is the ability to create tracks yourself and the enormous potential of other user's creations. The game's primary fansite, TrackMania eXchange, just passed a massive 20,000 user created tracks in just 7 months. The block based editor, which forgoes the complexities of "real" level editing programs for accessibility and ease-of-use, is on the outside simple but wondrously complex as you venture deeper into trackmaking.

Newcomers should be warned that every iteration in the TrackMania series has used StarForce copy protection, and United is no exception. I don't like the strict and rather draconian copy protection scheme, but the game itself is the best racing game I have ever played. And it's out in America on the 11th.

Anyone else even heard of it, or am I just typing to myself?

Yeah, I have TrackMania Nations. How does it compare to to United? I really like the online play on Nations so if United is just as good I might consider buying it

quote:

Originally posted by Katsumend:
Yeah, I have TrackMania Nations. How does it compare to to United? I really like the online play on Nations so if United is just as good I might consider buying it

United contains an updated version of what you're playing, with more track pieces, higher quality graphics and more features in general.

That said, a lot of people who enjoyed Nations a bunch had trouble adjusting to the other environments as opposed to Stadium -- none of them have the same "feel" as what you're driving now, some are faster, some much slower, most give you a feeling that you are much less "in control" and almost all are harder in terms of mastering the vehicles' quirks. Whether you're open to that sort of thing or not is obviously up to you.

I like United much, much better than United myself.