Reviewed by: DNM
Developer: Nadeo
Publisher: Digital Jesters

You can have the most complicated plot, the latest tech driven visuals and sound, but nothing is quite like pure and simple gameplay. TrackMania instantly reminds me of the goodness that was 'Stunt Car Racer' on the Commodore Amiga, a game that simply had you racing along narrow tracks with insane jumps and treacherous corners. TrackMania takes this simplicity, adds a nice splash of colour and sticks you behind the wheel of one of three different vehicles.

The idea is simple, race from start to finish in as quick a time as possible. Depending on your ability you will receive a Gold, Silver or Bronze medal, with the latter being the minimum requirement to unlock the next track to race. You don't race anyone; you are merely up against the clock, though take the game online and you can race against others. If you decide to race the same track again to better your time you will be racing against the ghost image of your previous best attempt. As you'd expect the initial tracks break you into the game gently, but as you progress you will encounter increasingly more insane tracks to race on. You'll find on some maps the difficulty isn't so much in the track layout itself, but knowing where to go for your next checkpoint! The last Snow map is particularly annoying in this respect!

The action takes place on three different terrains, Snow, Desert and Countryside, each of which has a different vehicle and hence different racing style required. Probably the best of the three is the Desert car, looking like something out of 'Dukes of Hazard' this is the fastest, but requires a good level of control with it's bouncy suspension making the car move all over the place! The car you use in the Countryside levels resembles a mini, and makes a noise more like a Hoover, but as you'd expect its handling is very sharp.

The main focus of the game, and perhaps for me the thing that I just don't dig is the Track creation process. You only get a handful of tracks to play through on the three terrains, and with each victory you receive a certain amount of 'coppers', the game's currency. The idea behind this is that this gives you money to spend in the TrackMania shop on new bits of track to use in the Track creation aspect of the game. It is good that the developers are encouraging people to create their own tracks of death, and then share them with other users, but for me I'd rather just be racing! You need to get sufficient coppers to get access to the games full compliment of 300 different track parts!!

Once you have completed all three terrains, you also have a chance to play the game in Puzzle mode. The idea behind this is that you get a track view, with a certain amount of track parts to use, and you have to build the track. This can range from a completely empty map with only start and finish blocks in place, or a fully completed map with a couple of parts you need to fit correctly. I didn't find this part of the game very enjoyable either, but you have to go through this on all terrains to get those extra coppers!

Presentation wise, TrackMania is a little bit hit and miss, with the main menu system being somewhat confusing in as far as level selection is concerned, and pretty darned ugly too! The main title track sounds like something from a Commodore 64, though this may well be an audio issue with my PC, but the in-game music sounds fine. Graphically TrackMania isn't going to set the world on fire, but the track design especially on some of the larger more intricate tracks can at times look very impressive, not to mention daunting!

Of course I can't review this without mention of the Track editor itself, which is extremely easy and friendly to use. You basically get an empty canvas for you to paint your Tracks on. Move the little grid icon around, and draw in your track, elevating it up a notch if you masterpiece is going to go up in the world. Bottom line is it's very easy to create a work of TrackMania art with the editor, and once you have your complete track you can then take it online and see if anyone can beat you! Getting beat on your own map is not the done thing don't forget!!

Which finally leads me to the multiplayer side of the game. This has to be one of the easiest games to get going online yet. Create an account in-game, which doesn't require your email, house number, the address of your next of kin, just your name, age, location and that's about it! Once in you'll get a list of countries to pick from, and then a list of servers there-in. Simply find one with a spare slot for you to join and away you go! The only servers I found with active players, and that weren't in a crashed state were in France, and really weren't that playable. On a LAN it will most certainly provide a lot of entertainment, and perhaps on a more local server be a good romp on the internet too.

Its old skool gameplay and simplicity make TrackMania a game I'd heartily recommend, but the track design element doesn't do anything for me and as such I can't see me playing this a few months down the line. If you have a flare for design then maybe this will be your seventh heaven. Either way, the single player game though relatively short lived, has bags of fun for everyone!