Introduction
TrackMania: SunrisePut Nick Haywood in a car and he’ll either crash it or leave it somewhere where someone else will crash into it… So we sat him down with TrackMania: Sunrise to save all our insurance premiums…
Trackmania, what a cracking game that was. And right now you’re either agreeing with me or sitting there with a blank expression tempered with a hint of confusion as you’ve never heard of it. If the latter description is you, then you’re not alone as the original TrackMania was criminally overlooked upon release and though it received plenty of good reviews, it just didn’t get the attention it deserved.
To my mind, the original TrackMania suffered from people just not ‘getting’ it. It wasn’t that it was a bad game by any means, but it was never meant to be the arcade racer that people expected. If you ever played Geoff Crammond’s seminal Stunt Car Racer, you’ll have a good idea of what TrackMania was all about. Improbable leaps, half-pipes, booster zones, ridiculous speeds and racing all rolled into one. Sadly, this near pure arcade fun was misunderstood and passed over by the bleating masses…
Luckily for us, Nadeo and Digital Jesters have been working away on TrackMania: Sunrise, a sequel that promises to buff up the few rough edges of the original, throw in some new features and tweak the gameplay to give us an even more satisfying experience than before. The question is, have they managed it? And is this worth getting if you already own the original? Rev up and read on…
