AVADirect's Favorite Games - Trackmania Forever

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   AVADirect's Favorite Games - Trackmania Forever

New post series.  AVADirect staff will recommend and review games for the PC.  Nothing too in-depth, but gives our customers and members some insight into what we play and like.

If you do not know what the Trackmania Series of driving games is, it is just something else.  It is basically a driving game with no limits as to what is possible.  Driving at 600 mph, jumping thousands of feet into the air, landing insane stunts.  The video above shows just what is possible with this game.

There are a few games in the Trackmania Series.  There was the original Trackmania.  Then there was the Trackmania Sunrise, with much better graphics and gameplay.  The Extreme expansion pack came out for that game, and provided more extreme gameplay.  Now there are currently two versions of the newest of the Trackmania games, Trackmania Nations and Trackmania United.  Nations is the free version of the United game, with less environments and missing content.  Now with the Forever expansion pack, people using both versions can play together online. 
I have been playing the free version, Trackmania Nations Forever, almost the entire weekend now.  It is very addicting and with the online play, no two races are ever the same with thousands of the different tracks to race and varying levels of different racers to compete against.  Also, Trackmania features one of the best integrated and website online community I have seen in a game.  You can browse the Trackmania website for web statistics, download tracks, cars, and competitions, or chat it up on their webforum.
One of the best things about this game is that my current hardware is running this game at maximum settings at over 70 FPS.  The graphics look amazing with dynamic shadows and lighting effects and very detailed track structure.  The game physics may be wonky, and the cars may move at odd or impossible speeds and angles, but that just adds more fun to the game.  Downside is that the main control is by using the keyboard.  Arrow keys are for turning, accelerating, and braking while two other keys control respawning.  Very simple game control, but adding support for joysticks or gamepads would really help.  I got wrist cramps from playing too long.

Pros
Cons

Fun game with great replay value 
Tight internet community 
Unlimited track options 
Easy to use yet hard to master track editor 

Keyboard only control 
Limited in some aspects in track design 
Some very hard and frustrating tracks that are in online play 
AVADirect score:    9/10
http://www.trackmania.com/en/index.php?rub=nations 

Edited by MattSlagle - 09 Jun 2008 at 10:19am