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| The Edinburgh trams controversy reached new levels of absurdity |
Ok, that’s something of an exaggeration. The fact that you’re racing through a wild and rugged canyon landscape acts as a constant reminder that this TrackMania has a 2 on the end. Nonetheless, it feels so similar to United that for a good half hour I found myself wondering why Nadeo had bothered to make a sequel at all.
I suppose this might be reassuring to avid TrackMania fans. In terms of racing, TrackMania 2 feels immediately familiar to anyone who has experienced the series before. Cars are controlled entirely with the four arrow keys, and their handling feels light and responsive under your fingers. This is a good thing, because the tracks are just as window-licking bonkers as they were before, and as before, you’re going to need an utterly pristine lap in order to score highly on the time trial leaderboards.
After a while, though, the differences in TrackMania 2 begin to shine through. While the cars slide into the corners as smoothly as they always did, they have more of a physical presence about them. In part this is due to the new damage model, which is arguably the most defining visual characteristic of TrackMania 2 (aside from the masses upon masses of brown-orange rock that constantly looms around you, obviously). Before now, if you were involved in a collision your car would bounce off a barrier like a rubber off the back of a teacher’s head. Slam your vehicle into a concrete block now and the car will resemble a piece of used tinfoil.
However, there’s more to the increased physical there-ness of the cars than a fancy new damage model. They seem to have just a little bit more weight, a more tangible connection with the racetrack. This small change has a knock on effect that gives the TrackMania 2 a much grander feel. Now racing up the side of a wall feels considerably more perilous and exhilarating than it did before, because you can feel gravity trying to claw you down onto the jagged canyon rocks, your tyres screaming in protest as you power-slide perpendicular to the ground.
The grander scale of the game is complimented by the way track layouts have been tweaked. As before, you can build your own tracks via a comprehensive map editor, which gives you a chunk of raw canyon and allows you to sculpt it into the avant-garde racetrack of your dreams. Yet TrackMania 2’s tracks have far more flow to them than the more angular creations in earlier games.
I was going to call them natural, but that would be an absolute lie. On one track the road twisted along the side of a canyon at a forty-five-degree angle before leaping briefly onto a highway, then arcing up an enormous pipe-like structure with a gap at the top which had to be jumped whilst driving upside-down. Actually, these may be sections of a variety of tracks that I’ve mentally consolidated into one racing monstrosity, but I definitely did all those things while playing, and it would be entirely possible to create such a track in the level editor.
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| It's a pretty game, of that there is no doubt |
I may add a caveat to that last sentence. I managed to get on an official Ubisoft server for an hour or so and play what I’m guessing were professionally made maps. They certainly looked very professional, with roads and mountains and industrial complexes sprouting off in all directions. But the tracks themselves were a bit dull, and rather short. I suppose it doesn’t really matter given some of the absurd and brilliant community creations, but it is a shame to see the professionally built tracks lacking in imagination.
What added to my disappointment was that the official Ubisoft server brought with it by far the smoothest and cleanest racing experience I had during my entire time with TrackMania 2. On most of the other servers, while my personal race was wonderfully silky, when it came to the rival cars the experience was akin to racing a group of yoyos. With Ubisoft’s server the experience was so slick I could have been racing in a single player game.
Obviously Ubisoft have little control over the quality of custom servers, but they have complete control over the quality of tracks that appear on their own. Hopefully they’ll adopt custom maps over time, or release an official update comprised of player created content like the “Star Edition” update for United.
There’s one other concern. Even though I discovered a lot of subtle differences in TrackMania 2, I nonetheless found myself wondering whether it’s enough to warrant a full-blown sequel. Sure, races can be played at dawn, dusk and night, the media tracker has been updated, and players can now write their own computer scripts to further customise their tracks, but these don’t really feel like sequel-defining changes. Don’t get me wrong, I had a blast with the available code, but I had a lot of fun with United as well and I thus far I haven’t seen a whole lot that’s radically new in the sequel. Plenty that’s different, but different and new are not always the same thing.
Having said that, maybe I’m being unfair towards Nadeo. After all it can’t be easy to create new content for a game when creating new content is a part of the game in itself. It’s a bit like moaning that there are no castles in Minecraft. Furthermore, Nadeo have been gradually updating TrackMania for eight years now, and a big chunk of that content has been free, so their attempt at a sequel can’t be met with too much hostility.
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| My psychic powers tell me we're approaching a checkpoint |
Finally, the fact that my biggest complaint about the game is regarding what isn’t there implies that the content that’s present and correct is pretty darned good. In fact, you might even say TrackMania 2 is looking gorge-ous. (ED: HUR HUR- you're fired.)
And yes, I am available for private functions.
Most Anticipated Feature: Probably the tweaked driving model for the new muscle cars. That extra weight really does add to the experience.
