TrackMania Nations Forever Review
There is such a thing as a free launch ramp.
Version tested: PC
At 1.30am last night, I couldn't tell you whether I loved or hated TrackMania. What I can tell you is that I was playing it. Or more specifically, playing one track. Again and again. Determined to beat it. Increasingly tired, and as such increasingly unable to make the perfectly timed turns to get that Gold medal that sat between me and sleep.
Right, so there's some confusion to deal with. What exactly is going on with Nations Forever? It's free. Utterly and entirely free. As was the previous TrackMania Nations - a stripped down version of the series created for use in the Electronic Sports World Cup. However, Forever is also a free add-on for the most recent retail release, TrackMania United. The result is, United is now called TrackMania United Forever, and when purchased new will come with 3D glasses to take advantage of the new 3D mode. Muddled yet? Well, wait.
United's big hook was the online play. You could play the game in the offline mode, and then at any time attempt an "official" run, which would upload the results to the international database, and rank you alongside anyone else who'd attempted that track. Well, now the same appears in Nations Forever, along with 65 completely new stadium tracks, for both solo and multiplayer racing. Previously Nations was completely separate from the rest of the TrackMania series, but now Nations Forever and United Forever are fully integrated. People with Nations can race on the Nations-specific tracks against people playing United.

Don’t be fooled by the "United" banners. This is Nations inside of United.
Just in case anyone's not clear, TrackMania is about flinging zippy cars around utterly impossible tracks, looping loops, bouncing on water, all combined with taking perfectly timed corners to shave a hundredth of a second off the previous best time. It's about undiluted fun, combined with precision driving (although without any stupid "realism" to ruin the fun). And since United, it's about being better at that track than anyone in the world, or at least, in my case, trying to be better than someone in the South West of England, which is as specific as it gets in its league tables. With United you get various modes of play familiar to all in the non-free series: racing, platform and puzzle, with a large variety of vehicles. Nations, however, is all about the racing, and about driving the Formula 1-style cars.

The car customisation allows an artist to express himself to his fullest maturity.
But what's most important about TrackMania - what makes it stand out from everything else - is the instant restart. Screw up, and you will about 39034 times a day, and you just stab "Enter" and it takes you back to the last checkpoint, or hit "Backspace" to get to the start of the race. It happens so quickly you'll wonder if it's psychic. This is exactly how games should treat you. A second's load time and it might get annoying. The split-second restart ensures you'll play until your fingers fall off.
So if you download Nations Forever, as is, what exactly are you getting? As I mentioned, it's 65 new tracks in five difficulty bands, unlocked by successfully completing earlier tracks in each category. And as is becoming fantastically familiar with Nadeo's series, they are superbly designed and novel courses, created with a precision that makes scoring a Bronze engagingly simple, and achieving the Gold maddeningly tricky. These medals are represented in-game by "ghost" cars, meaning you literally race against the goal times, which is a billion times more satisfying than keeping an eye on the clock. It also means you can study their technique and steal it for success.
It's designed for e-sports, but also for just having a stupidly excellent time mucking around with. And while it doesn't contain Puzzle or Platform, it does nod toward the latter with its "Obstacle" courses, which require some inventive leaping and bouncing. But more than anything, it's 65 tracks for free! Free! And you can play online against the world, both in the solo mode, or in the madcap, sometimes unintelligible multiplayer mode.
TrackMania cars can't touch each other. Everyone's a ghost to everyone else. So in multiplayer you're all on the same track at the same time, racing to see who can get the best times, but starting whenever you like. It's bedlam. It's also ranked on the international ladders.
Nations Forever also comes with its own track editor, so it doesn't end with the 65. Downloadable player-created content means the game will expand to infinity. You can customise your cars with the painting facilities. You can edit videos of your own driving. Then there's Party Play for LAN and a gang of people sat around one computer, and the Explorer, which works like a cross between a mini-internet and a social networking site, from which you can download tracks, replays, movies, etc, created by other players.
If you're picking up Forever to expand your copy of United, you won't only get the new "Nations" category in your sidebar with the new levels, but you'll also find there's extra materials appearing in the track editor, and a graphical overhaul of the original race categories, Desert, Snow and Rally, to bring them up to speed with the more recent courses.

Since TrackMania Sunrise, Nadeo have been the best at sunsets.
There's some (more) confusion over the pricing of picking up United Forever new. The US price on Steam went up from USD 30 to USD 40 when the free add-on was added (it's stayed at USD 40 for Europe). Which doesn't seem so free, but of course it's within Nadeo/Ascaron's remit to charge whatever they wish for their game. It does seem a bit much to increase the price of a year-old game, and the new retail version will of course cost more than finding a year-old copy of United and then adding the download. Um, we recommend you do that quickly before the shops switch them all over. You'll miss out on the 3D glasses, but, well, yes.
In the cold light of day I can tell you, emphatically, that I love TrackMania. In the cold light of day I was able to get the Gold and move on. If United got anything wrong, it's that it was too hard. As the lead dev, Florent Castelnerac, said in the comments of the United review, "I even [can't] get the gold medal on the last one: PlatformE, but I wanted to give lasting appeal to the expert out there." Forever's new tracks absolutely nail the difficulty. Oh, and by the way, the minimum specs are a 1.6GHz CPU, 256MB RAM and a 16MB video card.
I'm not sure what a gift horse is, but I'm told one shouldn't look at its mouth. I don't understand how this is relevant. Meanwhile, get a copy of Nations Forever, or for goodness sake upgrade your United. This is a ludicrous amount of excellent fun to get for free, and in that price bracket, it automatically gains an extra point on the Out-Of-Ten-o-Meter.
9 / 10
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Comments (47) Latest comment 4 years ago
Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!
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Did you buy your PC in 1998?
edit: unless you just mean you don't like turning your PC on anymore, in which case apologies!
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Get it and then come and join the Eurogamer Trackmania Group.
/shameless pimpage
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Because it's the freedom to create tracks and custom car skins and share them for free that keeps Trackmania alive.
I'm currently playing the hell out of the free version of TMNF with 3d glasses on and absolutely loving it. Haven't had such a blast playing online since Quake 3. Also, everything running supersmooth on my over 3 years old single core (amd3200+) with 6800le gpu. This is PC gaming done right!
Get it here and try it for yourself:
http://ww w.trackmania.com/en/index.php?l...
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Update it via the patch from the TMF website and you get the entire Trackmania United Forever game (including all the Nations Forever stuff) for a ludicrously low price!!
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I'll have to get United, though. The Sunrise tracks are just so much more beautiful than those in Nations.
e: @valver: Sunrise is 4 Quid on play, not United. United is 25. I doubt you can upgrade from Sunrise, or can you?
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I love the leaderboards, but think they could have gone further with the localisation. To soothe my ego I could do with a street-specific leaderboard please.
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I downloaded my copy of TMUF from the trackmania website, so I'm pretty sure there's no starforce, as there's no disc to check.
Or am i just being an eejit?
EDIT: for eejitness
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It includes Starforce but it is the newer version that doesnt install drivers so its no worse than Safedisc or Securom in that way.
Install it, create your profile, enter your CD key. It will not connect to the servers because they have been taken down. Now go download the TM United Forever updater and install that in its own folder. When you start TMU Forever it will import your TMU profile and CD Key, will connect to the servers and work just fine.
Then, believe it or not, you can uninstall your original TMU and still play TMUF without needing the CD in the drive!
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[link url=http://www.game.co.uk/PC/Racing/~r330006/Trackmania-U nited/
]http://ww w.game.co.uk/PC/Racing/~r330006...[/link]
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EG Trackmania Group
Official Trackmania Thread
For those of you that have United Forever, check the thread for EG in-game group login!
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If you stick to just downloading Nations Forever it's definitely totally starforce free.
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Want this game so bad on a mac
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Cue much rejoicing at 1am and sudden onset of cramp
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I tried multiplayer once and was so put off I think I'll stick with the solo modes.
Apart from that it's the usual TM goodness.
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I NEVER play in singleplayer, that's where the neverending fun is
My ninjapc stutters if i go for all maxed out graphics with 8x antialiasing and 16x anisotropic filtering, no clue what it is, but just as soon as the grass appears my pc goes into slideshow mode. Who cares, the game looks great on lower settings as well.
Anyone noticed the dynamic lighting simulating clouds blocking the sunlight? Cool but fun for 30 sec, would love to try the 3d goggles though.
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OMG! It actually works! 3D is universally terrible all the time, and yet here it's brilliant! I think it's thanks to the slider, so you can make it the right 3D for your eyes. The colours dull, obviously, but the first time you crash you're in love.
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I spent £5 on United from playtrade (they've all sold out) a fortnight before Forever came out. Bargain.
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I suggest using the ones from your copy of Spy Kids 3D on DVD.
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That is a problem - means you have to keep taking the Trackmania folder from My Documents back and forth to work - annoying - is the problem fixed if you set the config to use single profile only, rather than multiple? Luckily, it stores your officials timeson the servers, so make sure you post those!
I love TM multiplayer - shame I can't access it from work
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BEST
RACING
GAME
EVER
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Why not just buy Gripshift for XBLA instead, which is pretty much the same idea only a lot better?
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Because that's simply not true I'm afraid
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Lets me honest a lot Free games are shit, this is not. I planned last night to play this for ten minutes before having another long game of Final Fantasy Tactics on the PSP.
An hour later I was too tired to play FFT...
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Why not just buy Gripshift for XBLA instead, which is pretty much the same idea only a lot better?
LOL!
You are joking right? Gripshit is OK, but it is *nothing* compared to Trackmania. Graphically, the physics, the online component - all a bagillion times better in Trackmania (at least).
Infact, make that a bagillionplex!