Well its taken a while however after doing a bit of research (playing the games) I have finally come to a point where I can do a fair comparison. Today I am going to be reviewing Trackmania United (TMU) and comparing it against Tackmania Nations (TMN).(freeware version)
I found this game because I was looking for a cool free game to pass the time. I downloaded TMN from the Nvidia website. I was really blown away with the graphics and speed at which the game was played. Very addicting, I found the game to be a nice blend between racing, puzzles, and beauty.
A great way to waste time, or compete with your friends Trackmania has done something amazing. Out of a simple idea racing online. This game is not in any way ment to be a simulation, so if thats what you are looking for then you are out of luck. However this game does allow you to take your cars hundreds of miles per hour with no consequences.
With Trackmania United, this game has been fully polished. The user interface has been cleaned up to look much nicer and be much more user friendly. They way that you view stats and connect with your friends around the world has also been streamlines. The environments have been varied. All the best parts of the different trackmania games seem to have been mixed into this new game, ending up with a fast fun and visually beautiful game.
There are some downsides however. Not all of the cars handle reasonably, it seems that they didn't take the time to polish the controls of the cars, and some cars are very touchy and hard to drive. Not just to the point of making the cars unique but to the point of making certain cars no fun. It would have been nice to see them give each are their cars individual handling feel, while still maintaining playability.
I found that I played Trackmania Nations, much more because it was straight forward, one car and one style racing. Trackmania United its harder to find servers that have only the styles of racing that are fun. I sure hope that they patch the handling of the different car models, however, this game is very good.
I also looked at the graphics options, and other features of the game. Its nice to see that a person with pretty much any mainstream computer, can configure the game to work well for him, this does mean however that less powerful computer owners may not get all the eye candy, however they will still get to have all the fun.
In conclusion. If you want the eye candy and different environments offered in Trackmania United, you will enjoy your purchase, however you should probably check out Trackmania Nations first and see if that game is fun for you. If it is and you don't want to customize your cars paint or trade car models then TMN might be better for you.
• Biggest online race – 132 players took part in a single time trial race
• Largest content base of any racing game – The TrackMania Exchange website has over 150,000 user created tracks and over 200 unique cars
• First publicly available game developed specifically for an online competition TrackMania Nations was developed for the 2006 Electronic Sports World Cup and made available for free online. It has been downloaded over 30 million times
• Most nationalities in an offline racing competition – 34 nations entered the TrackMania event at the 2007 Electronic Sports World Cup
• Most popular online racing sim – The TrackMania series has over 3 million online registrations
• Most popular user created video – A trailer created by a TrackMania fan using in-game offstage has been viewed over 2 million times at GameTrailers.com
*Records taken from Guinness World Records 2008: Gamer’s Edition.
http://gamers.guinnessworldrecords.com/book.aspx
TMN has mods you can download to customize your car. I have a Shelby Cobra, as well as other awesome cars.
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