Game Info Box
Title: Trackmania United
Developers: Ascaron and 93 Games
Publisher: Nadeo
Format: PC
First a history lesson, I see fit to give one as Nadeo have given one themselves in the TMU manual.
In 2003 a small French developer released a small game called Trackmania. In short, it did very well indeed. The original Trackmania was the breakout hit of the year spawning massive communities and the sort of friendly competition rarely seen on the internet. Track building became a smash pasttime with everyone, the Desert, Alpine and Rally environments providing 3 distinctly different handling styles with 3 very different sets of building blocks to create tracks with using the game's currency, Coppers.
Fast forward to 2005. Hot on the heels of the FREE! expansion packs Power Up and Speed Up (both adding new blocks to the editor and new races to campaign mode) came the second coming. Trackmania Sunrise launched to a rapturous reception before most people realised that it was pretty much the same game only a bit nicer looking. The track editor was harder to use and the competition had dropped below the friendly line. To my eyes Trackmania was in trouble, not even the F-Zero like Extreme expansion could save it.
2006 now and Trackmania needed something to bring in the masses. So they released a free download of a stand-alone version. Entitled Trackmania Nations it has now been downloaded over 20million times and was used at the Video Games World Cup 2006. Everything that made it good was back, the track editor was simplified and the competition was back to friendly rivalry with players playing for their country. The stage was set for TM to go into the full big time.
So enters Trackmania United. The 4th game in the series and it is definately not the same game in a nicer skin. The first thing is that Nadeo have not introduced any new environments instead choosing to use Desert, Alpine and Rally from the original game, Island, Bay and Coast from Sunrise and Stadium from Nations. 7 environments each with their own campaign in the Race mode.
Race mode is a simple sprint from the start to the finish, each environment has 4 difficulty levels from Start to Hard with 5 tracks in each. Collecting 5 medals gets the next level, finishing Easy unlocks the next environment. Medals are gained for Training times only as in addition to that there's a new element introduced which I'll explain later.
Puzzle mode takes the same format only the track has to be built around obstacles and preset checkpoints using the given blocks and track editor. Then you take to your track and set your best time, the catch is that a poor time may not be your driving.
Platform mode is the last mode to return, take a car and environment and take it from the start to the finish without falling off the track or being incapacitated. Medals are awarded for how many times you have to restart with the precious golds only going to a perfect run.
So the basic solo game is the same, as is the multiplayer. Where this game has changed is with ManiaLink. ManiaLink is an Xbox Live Marketplace style shop for new tracks, cars, game mods and tournament entry. This is where the Coppers return. Now they are rewarded for creating items and uploading them to ManiaLink, once they're there the initial bonus you get for uploading is augmented by recieving 100% profit on all sales. It is the sort of thing Trackmania has needed since the original and reinventing the copper has provided exactly what the community needs. As more and more people get this game the budding salespeople will be really fighting for attention thus forcing quality to go up. Nothing bad can come of that.
And for those who can't create tracks (idiots), Nadeo gracefully rewards players with 50 coppers just for logging in each day. This can be augmented to 100 and 150 by registering your copies of Trackmania and Trackmania Sunrise. An inspired idea to be sure.
Finally fighting for attention in the sea of new features is Official times. Once you've mastered a track you can pay a small fee (in coppers natch) to take one single timed run. That time then goes up as an official time on your region leaderboard. Get very good and times can go up to the continental and world leaderboard, good times bring in skillpoints and more coppers. The pressure of only have one shot at getting right will really slam the pressure on for the tougher tracks. I approve.
United is a massive improvement over Sunrise and is the definitive Trackmania so far. A greatest hits compilation with massive improvements elsewhere it provides what the series needed and remains the only essential PC racing game. I'd advise getting a controller though, those turns are unforgiving.
In One Line
Its hard to see how Nadeo can improve on this.
Score
Nine (9)
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