![]() The map editor is the main highlight here and allows players to craft their own tracks from scratch. The last aspect of Trackmania that we haven’t touched upon yet is the in-game editors. The scope is truly exciting just like any good MMORPG. Keep your head down and just drive race after race to gradually climb up the rankings ladder, join in with the friendly banter and make some friends to race with, or take it one step further and sign up with a team to race in competitions. From there on it’s up to the player to get what they want from the game. A big improvement to Canyon over its predecessors is ManiaLive, which ships with the game and easily allows hosts to customise their server with plugins, such as track records and music players. The servers aren’t booming like the fields of duty are, but at the time of writing there are at least a dozen servers with more than 10 drivers apiece, with the top two servers each boasting over 50 drivers, which is a riot as far as racing games are concerned. It should also be noted that there is never any contact between cars – they are there simply for visual pressure. There is even a stunt mode included, which is a bit like the Tony Hawk skateboarding games, only with cars. Servers come in a variety of shapes and sizes with a handful of game modes including time trial, which gives players unlimited restarts to set the fastest lap in a set time limit, and rounds, where points are scored in individual laps of a track with no restarts should car and track depart ways. Ladder points are earned on ranked servers simply by finishing ahead of other ranked drivers. There are offline hot seat, split screen and local network modes, but the longevity comes with the online mode which houses a separate multiplayer ranking board. It can become an addictive process of trial and error, though skill, luck and consistency can dictate whether the experience ultimately becomes fulfilling or just frustrating.Īfter a bit larking about (read: serious practicing) it’s time to take the plunge and take the race multiplayer. Should a lap be tarnished by a mistake, or indeed were the car to say, leave the track, then it can be instantly reset back to the last checkpoint or restarted at the start line for another go at the press of a button, with our average being 3 or 4 restarts a minute. ![]() These uploaded times can now only be set every 5 minutes, so practice and composure are essential for boasting that optimum lap. Official times are uploaded to individual track leaderboards - which can be viewed on regional, national and worldwide scales – and also earn skill points which for an overall solo leaderboard. Tracks can be raced offline against four preset computer ghost cars but the real satisfaction comes by uploading an ‘official time’. The starter tracks may involve racing a fairly simplistic track from start to finish as quickly as possible, but it’s not long before the tracks involve staggeringly large jumps, loop the loops, crazy suspended bridges through caves and huge banked curves at ridiculous speeds, all of which makes finishing a track a challenge in itself. Unless it’s a simulation of lunacy you're after that is. This simple statement shouldn’t be underestimated however as Trackmania is no simulation racer. The solo mode features a campaign of around 65 tracks which become progressively harder in difficulty. Boot up the game and there are essentially three main ways to get stuck in and play: race solo, online or dabble with the editors. The look and feel of Canyon will be very familiar for returning Trackmania folk, but new players with a basic sense of direction can get up to speed relatively easily. Regardless, in this modern digital age the game is relatively quick and easy to download – it’s just over 1 gig in size and the handy Ubisoft download manager allows pausing and resuming of the download. Trackmania 2: Canyon, or Canyon from here on, is actually only available in digital download form, so wrapping it up as a present could prove rather difficult. Trackmania 2: Canyon is the most recent and grandest offering from French developer Nadeo, but is it worth consideration as a Christmas stocking filler? In fact, the Trackmania lineage now boasts over 10 million registrations and a dedicated following within that. Trackmania has proved to be somewhat of a sleeper hit since the racing series was first released on the PC in 2003. Reviews // 8th Dec 2011 - 11 years ago // By POBmaestro Trackmania 2: Canyon Review
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