Trackmania 2: Canyon

My first experience of Trackmania 2: Canyon was logging onto a server named “Cheap and quick thrills” and being immediately greeted to Cher’s “Believe”, followed by a fifty foot drop. Realising I was supposed to use that momentum to instead climb a track loop to the peak height of the map, I immediately re-spawned my vehicle and attempted to best my previous effort. As I crossed the finish line, I noticed that forty-nine other players were chanting “AFTER LOVE AFTER LOVE” into the in-game chat.

This likely isn’t what you had in mind for a racing game, but this is par for the course with Trackmania, a long-running series of light-hearted, multiplayer-centric arcade racers which deftly balance tight control and over-the-top track designs. After what must seem like an endless line of “Forever” and “Nation” iterations (the latter of which is free), Trackmania finally enters proper sequel territory with Trackmania 2: Canyon, the first in what promises to be a true overhaul of the games.

For longtime players, this promise is first felt in the way Canyon handles. Gone are the F1 and muscle cars of its forebears; instead, we’re treated to rally-style racers. While the controls retain the “twitchy” feel the series is known for, these cars are heavier and the physics model is more grounded in reality. There is also a greater emphasis on easy drifting this time around, which was tricky (but not impossible) for most players before. These changes, combined with the usual wacky Trackmania track designs, make for a whole new take on its gameplay.

That base gameplay remains the same, however. Players drive a car and race through a track, trying to achieve the fastest lap possible. When you finish the track (or if you screw up) you restart from the beginning (or optional checkpoints, but these just waste time) and attempt to shave precious milliseconds off your performance. It’s a simple formula, but a surprisingly addictive one. It’s somewhat analogous to Super Meat Boy, where the best players are constantly rushing through stages with wall-jumps and whatever shortcuts they can find to stay on top of the leaderboards, understanding that a restart is needed if that attempt is anything but a perfect run.

That’s not to say that you have to be great at racing games to get any enjoyment out of Trackmania 2. Earning medals in the dozens of included single-player tracks (split among ranked “flags” of difficulty) will take a good chunk of time on its own, but it’s the multiplayer where the game really gets its hooks into you. Like LittleBigPlanet, almost every track is designed by players via a friendly built-in editor, and there are extensive options to customise cars, sound-tracks and server layouts as well.

It’s no exaggeration, then, to say that the heart of Trackmania lies in its vibrant online community. I was puzzled at first when I heard that Trackmania 2 wouldn’t be launching on Steam, given the success that “Nations” and “Forever” had there previously. The reason for this lies in the developers wanting greater control of ManiaPlanet, the improved network back-end for the game. Apart from offering the requisite messaging and server features of most online platforms, ManiaPlanet also gifts every user with 5,000 “planets” when they first log in. These planets can, in turn, be used to support your online efforts, whether it’s donating planets to a server so it appears higher in the server list, or spending some planets to call votes and switch maps. Additional planets are earned by simply playing the game and ranking on different tracks. Although some interface elements could use some tweaking, it’s an impressive start for the service.

At time of writing, only the time-attack race mode seems to be available online. It’s hoped that more unique offerings, like Forever’s “Puzzle” mode, will turn up as a free patch in future. The game supports both keyboard and gamepad controls, although acceleration isn’t analog by default due to the nature of the game, which may take some getting used to. Interestingly, in a move I can only applaud, Trackmania 2 does support split-screen multiplayer. Although the game isn’t going to win any awards for visual wizardry, it does look nice (and occasionally beautiful) and runs well on most systems. That said, the “Canyon” theme of every track does tend to get a little stale after a while, and I look forward to the rumoured “Valley” expansion.