Since my last thread on the trackmania:sunrse demo seemed to beneift from Zelda in the title, I might as well continue the trend. Of course, this thread isn't about zelda either.
Why the new thread? Well, the full game has just been released.
A less than ordinary drive in the city...
For those of you who missed out on the last thread, Trackmania : Sunrise is essentially a racing game for everyone, and I do mean everyone. The demo included six stages on three different types of game (Race, Puzzle and Platforming), on one tileset with the ability to make up to a custom track worth up to 950 coppers with many of the more fun track pieces removed. The full game has none of these restrictions.
What the hell am I talking about anyway? Essentially, this game allows you to create race tracks and race them online. Kinda like a spiritual sucessor to STUNTS for those old enough to remember that game.
What the hell did I just create....?
The only caveat is that when you create a track, the amount of track you can lay down is limited by the number of coppers you posess. You don't ever lose them perminently, but think of your copper llimit as something similar to the memory limit when creating Timesplitters maps or THPS skateparks, except it increases based on the number of coppers you have. The more coppers you posess, the crazier you can get.
I think I figured out the solution....
(The objective is to get from the green start block through the various blue block checkpoints to the red block finish within the time limit)
So how do you gain coppers? By completing various single player missions. You can do Race, which is normal racing against the clock. You can also try puzzle, which is similar to race, except that not only do you have to beat the clock, you have to build the track under certain conditions so that you CAN beat the clock. Or, you can try platforming, which gives you an insane track with lots of bumps and corkscrews and the challenge of trying to beat it with the fewest possible number of screwups. Or, you can try Crazy, which is just plain crazy. Or the many cups.
An overhead view of a sample Coast environment track
And the three tilesets are unique too, in that they make their surroundings not only look different, but as they have different cars on different surroundings, they drive differently as well. You have Island, which has host to a remote in the middle of nowhere type of environment which has extremely fast cars that skid into turns just right. Then, you have coast which features cars that are significantly slower and and harder to control. Sounds bad until you get the hang of it, and allows for a bit less randomness in the controls. Finally, there is Bay, which is a more citylike enviornment with SUV's that are sort of a happy median between the previous two enviornments.
Look interesting? Try the demo? Want to buy it? Purchase a copy off of Digital Jester's official UK site, they accept US orders and are probably the best place to get it from.