![]() 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. 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. Sure, it delivers standard loop the loops and jumps, but it's the size and magnitude and difficulty of each that really hits home. But there's one important distinction from the ancient Stunts-these stunts are really out there. 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. ![]() 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. But what is it? By simple definition, Trackmania United is an arcade racer. 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. 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. Expect to hear much more about TrackMania Sunrise in the near future.Trackmania United is the most recent in a series of Trackmania games developed by French design studio Nadeo. TM Sunrise also allows for customisable car skins and avatars.Īll in all, it sounds like quite a package, and we can't wait to get to grips with it. ![]() ![]() In addition to all that, Nadeo is building in a peer-to-peer network of sorts specifically so that players can swap their own creations - and not just tracks, either. Plus, there's the promise of two new modes: Platform and Crazy. And even if you're not very creative in that department, the straight-up racing mode looks like it'll benefit from some ludicrously complex in-house track designs, and the handling model should be forgiving enough even for novices to enjoy them. Track designers should be amply catered for indeed, the map area is twice as large just to accommodate the increased block size. The new environments are certainly impressive - there's a lot of water, cityscapes and track pieces that send cars up and down into the air like skateboarders. Imagine our delight, then, when we got our hands on the first details, screenshots and indeed video footage of the full-blown sequel, TrackMania Sunrise, which is due out from Britsoft publisher Digital Jesters in Q1 2005.įor those who missed it, TrackMania was a quirky little racing construction kit style affair that not only let players race around Scalextric-esque looping tracks in all manner of different environments, but also let us create our own out of various track pieces - a selection later bolstered by the addition of tunnels and other show-pieces in freebie expansion pack 'Power Up!'Īs you can see from the shots and the 30-odd-meg video available from Eurofiles, Sunrise is a lot faster, bigger and better looking - and, according to the DJs, still capable of running at speed on the same relatively low-end hardware that the original favoured. It's been a while since we wrote about TrackMania, but we certainly haven't forgotten about it.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |