I don’t like reviewing two games of the same genre back to back. It bores me playing similar games right after each other but there are a few times I will make an exception. This is one of those times because I want to talk about the sequel for the ultimate LAN party game.

For those who don’t know: I used to work at a survey software company, we had low support requests on Friday night since Americans, being the lazy bastards that they are, have taken off by lunchtime. Since we couldn’t take off early, we started looking for things to do. After a point, you get tired of scripting and learning new things so we took up gaming. The one game that caught the attention of the full office was TrackMania: Nations, a free to play version of TrackMania. It grabbed everyone’s attention because it was free, it was easy to get into and it was difficult to master. What more could we ask for?

TrackMania 2020 is a direct sequel to TrackMania: Nations so naturally I want to talk about it.

Story:

Like I mentioned in the GRID 2019 review: I need my racing games to have a story. TrackMania doesn’t have one even in the slightest sense but on the other hand, TrackMania has always been about doing better than everyone else and as a result it gets a semi-pass.

Sound:

The soundtrack is okay. The background music varies enough but it doesn’t feel connected to the tracks. It’s just some peppy instrumental music that can get boring quite fast. 

The cars sound powerful as they accelerate and hit turbo pads, they squeak when they are breaking or drifting. The different surfaces that the cars go over also have very muted sound effects. The sound effect when hitting things is there but it’s not great, it exists but doesn’t feel like the end of the world which it should sound like because hitting something in this game is the end of the race since you are not going to set a good time anymore.

Graphics:

The graphics can be pretty when they want to be. The sun effects on the track, the reflections and the textures, in general, all look nice. The car looks well designed and I guess that would be hard to screw up when there is only one car. The reflections on the car, the tire spin and the speedometer on the back of the car are all well done. After playing GRID 2019 I’ve found one more reason to like simpler graphics: It keeps a balance. When you try to make everything look great and forget 1 thing then that thing is noticeable but if you go a bit more simple then nothing annoys the player.  

Gameplay: 

When talking about racing games you have to talk about the cars. This is one of the few times you get to skip the cars since TrackMania, as its namesake is all about the tracks. Everyone has the same car which is a high speed and grippy F1 look alike. It handles well, listens to minute inputs and takes a turn like a boss. Your opponents too are not worth talking about since they are not AI characters but rather ghosts of other players. As a result of them being ghosts, there is no car collision, you simply drive through them on your way. Races in TrackMania are just hot laps where the best time wins but you have ghosts to chase and learn from to get the best time.

Since we have been saving the best for last, let’s get to the tracks. In the olden days of TrackMania: United Forever tracks where made of huge jumps, wall driving and just pure insanity. The tracks generally handled the same though and it was the cars that made the difference of being slippery light, low grip and so on. TrackMania 2020 does something that the older games didn’t do, it has different surfaces on tracks. Different surfaces cause the car to handle differently as it goes over them, for a few examples of these surfaces:

• Tarmac: Where the car handles beautifully and holds on to it like mad
• Sand: Where grip is a bit of a problem but can result in beautiful drifts if handled correctly
• Ice: Which can get fucked. There is no control in the least and it’s just annoying to play on.
• Turbo: A return from previous games. Handles like tarmac but boosts your speed.

This means that your car can be grippy at a point but go full-on no control at another because there is suddenly ice under your tires. It makes for a change over the previous games but at the same time adds too much to a trackmakers toolbox. This loss of focus can be seen in the official tracks that are out at the time of writing, they are trying too hard to show off the new surfaces instead of filling the maps with connection jumps and high-speed wall driving. There are some community-made maps already that are a lot more fun to play and do show off some great skill.

All in all, the gameplay is fun when the track is well built and thought out rather than rushed together to meet some deadline or to show off the ice. There is a certain joy in knowing that the only difference between first and last place is your driving skill so you keep on trying tracks again and again to find the perfect race line, more than once I have found my face nearly attached to the monitor as I tried to shave time off the track I was playing on.

Conclusion:

Before we conclude I want to point out a few problems I have that don’t fit in any of our usual categories: There are problems in detecting completion on user-made tracks. The checkpoints and restarts are also dodgy on user made tracks and the most hilarious on custom tracks is a sudden lag which shouldn’t exist since you are playing against ghosts. 

Second on the list is the subscription service. While you can play the game for free there are features like bloody chat that is locked behind paywalls. I’m inserting the full list here since I don’t want to generate traffic to UBi/Nadeo for this. 

In conclusion, the free version does offer some good quick fun but I would personally wait around half a year to see if Nadeo starts making better tracks before I put any money into TrackMania. In its current state, the player-created maps are the saving grace but are difficult to find on the free access.

Pros	Cons
No story	NA
Cars sound good	Music doesn’t fit
Amazing car graphics	Average world graphics
Cars handle well	Ice surface is a joke

Recommended Purchase Price: $7 or ₹350 for Starter Access. 

Final Score: 7/10