13/09/06 Jordan Miller
Trackmania Nations ESWC (PC) Review.
Trackmania Nations brings new spark to the loved TM series.
Following the underground success of Trackmania Original, Nadeo released Trackmania Sunrise into a decent sized audience worldwide. While a minor success, copies were hard to find for a while, and it wasn’t exactly a blockbuster. Most people purchased it online here in
My first impression of Nations is that it would be merely advertorial software, a free 260mb download designed to make me want to buy
Trackmania Nations ESWC (Electronic Sports World Cup) is a completely stand-alone game in its own right, packaging the quality and quantity of something you’d expect to pay at least $50 for in store. What’s new for TM Nations though is that it has been completely designed for the ESWC. Each country has its own world rank, and each player has both a world ranking and a ranking within their country. Each race you win gives you points, but only if you beat other players ranked better than you. The ESWC utilizes this system to host a yearly competition in which a grand final will be held to decide a winner of $400,000.
This personal and national ranking system based around the ESWC gives some motive to players and makes a long gaming session seemingly worth something. It’s a good addition to the traditional pick-up-and-play style that Trackmania has held through the years. Nations can be played 5 minutes at a time, or 5 hours at a time, similar to other arcade racing titles such as the Burnout series.
Nations core gameplay mechanics revolve around high speed racing and tight, reflex-driven action. Tracks consist of ridiculous jumps, loops, and boosts which is accentuated by elements like mid-air braking (yes, you can control your car whilst it is mid-air) and launching yourself off ramps at just the right angle to land smoothly. While there’s a nice selection of included default tracks, once you head out into internet servers both national and world-wide, you’ll find a large selection of crazy, well-made, and poorly-made tracks for you to jump, boost, flip, and race on.
The track editor included is a simple affair that offers limitless potential. With an easy interface yet multiple options, anyone can create their own track.
As the main game of Nations is intended to be online, dial-up and high ping players need not worry, as Nations online play is completely lag-proof. As the game has no car-collision, basically all that is needed from an internet connection is to upload your lap time to the server. People connected to the internet via their external 28k modem can play just fine.
The soundtrack consists basically of your standard techno-style beats, and while funky at first, can get repetitive and annoying after a while. Best advice is to turn down the games music and listen to your own beats while you race around, and unless you enjoy the sound of Formula 1 cars revving constantly, you might want to just kill off all sound while you’re there. Not that there’s anything wrong with the sound quality, it’s just that it all gets very repetitive after a decent amount of play.
Trackmania Nations is just a fun game. It isn’t trying to seriously compete with other racers out there, it’s doing its own thing. Being an arcade racer (at its most un-realistic form) car modifications are completely out, apart from being able to design your own skin. The lack of options, car models and areas is obviously Nadeo’s attempt at adding some incentive to purchase Trackmania Sunrise, which would be expected.
As mentioned, Nations is simply a free 260mb download, and is definitely worth at least trying out.
The Good
Fun, fast-paced gameplay
Completely free!
Great online play
The Bad
Lacks the content of full-priced games
Repetitive and eventually annoying sound
Not recommended for realistic racers
86%
