Trackmania Nations!

[The Apprentice]

I know this game is old, but I was wondering how many of you have tried it. It is a futuristic racing game that uses formula 1ish cars to race around extreme tracks. One of the best games I'v played in a while, it's free, and free to play online. You get a car that is painted with the colors of your country, which is cool because I got into a match with a guy from Germany, a few from Canada, a guy from the UK, and one from Korea. Anyway I made my own track and I'll post a link to a replay of it soon.

[durkada]

I played... Can't recall if its Trackmania United or Sunshine. But, overall, a very good racing game. The visuals are competent, but are not meant to detract from a steady framerate -- something which is important in a racer which requires impeccable timing. I loved it -- but wish I had a racing wheel attached to my Winders machine. Not even a steering wheel, but one of those old paddle controllers.

Anyway, just seconding your recommendation. It has no guns, no power-ups, and remains a very tight racing game featuring amazingly bizarre track design and physics. Take a weird arcadish surreal racing world and force it to require some driving skill, and you have Trackmania.

Cheers,
Jon

[fastbilly1]

Do note that that the free version, Nations, will upgrade Starforce if it is installed. It does not install Starforce if it is not installed already.

And the best version, United, is available on steam for $30.

[marurun]

According to Wikipedia...

Many sources falsely report that TrackMania Nations updates the StarForce drivers only if they are already installed, but, as of 28 May 2007, the current version of TrackMania Nations installs the StarForce drivers on all computers, even though TrackMania Nations is available free of charge.

[fastbilly1]

Didnt happen with my version, granted I got it from a third party site and not the official one. However it is really simple to run the removal tool after the install.

My view is if it runs fine why update? Yes security updates and real fixes are needed, but Nations was updated for balance issues for the competitions, or so Ive been told. Granted I havent updated firefox in so long that The Apprentice's sig tells me I am using IE...

[marurun]

His sig tells EVERYONE they are using IE as far as I can tell. I think it's a static image.

[fastbilly1]

Well that makes me feel better. I used firebird for four or five years and all the Firefox promoting banners like that would say Im using IE, that is why I brought that up.

[kinn]

I would love to try out Trackmaina. Its a game that seems so cool in that you can make your own tracks. But its use of Starforce has made me avoid it. A shame really.

Seems like an ideal game for something like Xbox Live Arcade.

[The Apprentice]

I spoke to soon in the first post. It's fun to play on line but this game has hacker problems as bad as Mario Kart DS.