It's a fun middle-ground, essentially, that the 65 new solo tracks do well to explore, winding through crisp late summer countryside dappled in vivid light. It drives as it looks, too - fast and to the point, its squat rear can be flicked out with more ease than Canyon's more pendulous motors, and when on the loose stuff all it takes is a quick lift of the throttle to get the whole thing sideways.Ĭompared to the scalpels that cut through Stadium's scenery there's less precision here, though they turn more severely than the beasts that prowled Canyon. Valley introduces new tracks with a rally tilt, its insane ribbons of dirt and tarmac pounded by a squat car that looks like an aggressive, muscular and contemporary take on a Renault 5 Turbo.
Nadeo's sprawling PC odyssey punishes with beautiful skill, and it's a legacy that's carried on well by Valley, the third official expansion for 2011's TrackMania sequel.Īt the heart of this expansion is the same toned arcade driving that's defined the series, and it's no less brilliant here. TrackMania always has been the toughest racing game around, and it likely always will be. There's only one real answer, though, and it's one that crystallized for me when soaring through drinkably blue skies for the umpteenth time at an improbable angle while trying to land an impossible jump. TrackMania's UI's a lurid mess that's either beautiful or beastly - I can't quite decide. Then there have been other times when trying to duck and dive through the blandly realized British countryside that I'd tell you that it's Richard Burns Rally that's the real bastard - get a hundred yards down any of those roads without scoffing the scenery and you can consider yourself a pro. It's still fun to try for medals on all tracks and unlock the super tricky black tracks, but the solo-play in TrackMania 2 isn't as good as it was with previous games in the series.What's the meanest, most brutal driving game around? There was a time when, fresh from a stint in the untamable Ferrari 312 around classic Spa in Grand Prix Legends, I would have told you that it's always been Papyrus that have been the masters of cruelty, happy to nonchalantly flick you off the track should you be so absent-minded as to not get enough temperature in the brake pads.
For a series which is addictive because of the ability to instantly restart a race when you crash, this design choice seems completely out of place, and really puts a damper on the solo-play aspect of the game. So if you make an attempt at an official time and crash near the beginning of the track, you will have to wait five minutes to try for another official time. Making the solo play option even less appealing is the fact that if you want to post an official time, which is a time that will be put on an online leaderboard, you must first get a gold medal on a track, and then wait five minutes between attempts. Most of the Nadeo tracks included are fairly narrow and surprisingly uninteresting few are worth obsessing over in the way the Nadeo tracks were in previous TrackMania games. However, the separate categories such as speed, acrobatic and race tracks have all been lumped into one. Like with previous entries, the game comes with a significant number of Nadeo made tracks that are divided into different colours based on their difficulty.
This reduced control in loops and wallrides is frustrating at first, but once you get used to them you can usually get through these obstacles with relative ease. Something else that will become evident as you play is that wallrides and loops are 'sticky ' when in one of these obstacles you will have to turn hard to adjust your left or right position.
Figuring out which turns are best taken with a drift, and which turns are best taken without drifting is one of the most important elements to improving your time on many tracks. There is also a big emphasis on drifting, and while this may seem out of place in a TrackMania game, the drifting mechanics allow for extremely precise control of the car, meaning you can slide through the most narrow of gaps with relative ease once you become used to the handling. The cars can go incredibly fast while still remaining fairly easy to control. It will become immediately apparent when you start playing TrackMania 2 for the first time that the handling is quite different from previous games.