Reader Reviews

TrackMania (PC)

by Peej

Ah the heady days of a car-obsessed youth. My car addiction started out relatively harmlessly with matchbox cars and huge lengths of hot wheels track (which also served the dual purpose as a cheap alternative to lightsabers in many sibling battles). But then around my 7th birthday I was introduced to the world of Scalextric, that dodgy transformer-powered black vinyl-tracked electrical-smelling world of slot car racing, which stayed with me well into adulthood (yes folks, I'm almost sad to admit that I still have a huge set with a lot of cars that youngsters probably haven't even heard of, let alone seen – Ladies and Gentlemen I give you the Elf Tyrell 6-wheeler F1 car!)

Enough teary-eyed reminiscences, on with the review. What you have with TrackMania is a tidy little game which at first sight almost seems like a sharp update of the old EA Classic "Racing Destruction Set" from way back in the day. The basic premise of the game is building a stupidly over-complicated track out of a (thankfully) huge back catalogue of interesting track bits, whacking in as many huge jumps and bumps as you can and then either playing them single-player to set the fastest track time, or racing against your friends either networked or taking it in turns.

Sounds fabulous, no? The three main scenarios (Desert, Alpine and a sort of greenery-enhanced rally/mud setting) each have a relatively unique set of track parts from which to construct your monster tracks. Or at least they would have, if it wasn't for just one thing... and this is where the game becomes more like Scalextric than the programmers probably intended.

You see you're not given an unlimited stock of "bits" to make your tracks from at the get-go. This glaring oversight forms part of the game's core – in that you have you earn "coppers" (the game's monetary unit) in order to buy track parts from each of the three scenario's catalogues. To earn coppers you play through two single-player modes, "Puzzle" and "Race" (Race is pretty self explanatory, whereas puzzle mode has the player finishing off partially completed tracks with a selection of bits, bizarrely reminiscent of Lemmings, where you're given certain types of Lemming to solve certain puzzle problems).

So alas you will spend a lot of time at the start of the game trying to gain bronze, silver or gold medals in time trials, or trying to solve some fiendishly difficult puzzles in order to buy enough bits to make even the most basic track layouts. Not good. Also the selection of vehicles (3), which you're given to play with, is a bit lacking, although each of the vehicle types do display unique handling characteristics.

That was the minus side. On the plus side, once you do start making those tracks you're rewarded with some excellent game dynamics including a ridiculously user-friendly track editor, very simple controls to drive your racer with (cursor keys!) and, once you get friends involved, a micro-climate of players all trying to out-trick each other with fiendish track layouts.