TrackMania United - hands-on

We’ve been dumbfounded by the online play in TrackMania United. We found ourselves playing online on a downloaded map within a single solitary minute of booting up the game. For speed, intelligence, community-thinking and sheer effortless design, Nadeo has pretty much trumped the online systems of every game we’ve ever played including Steam and EA Downloader. But that’s just the beginning of why we’re impressed with this wacky, slot-car-stunt-tracks-in-real-life racing game.

This game's been designed to be fun and simple; with the modes directly reflecting that; Race (zoomy, jumpy, against the clock), Puzzle (construct a track, connect the checkpoints, race and cheat) and Platform (adventure playgrounds for cars). You get your tasty pick of various cars, from high-powered, skyscraper-leaping jet cars to dirt-rally-rippers and slidey, ice track trucks.

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