Trackmania 2: Canyon
Reviewed By Tristan Tancredi
Trackmania has returned. The fast paced online car racing simulation is back, taking online gaming to another level.
Buckle in and test your skills against gamers from all around the world. Clock a time and see where you stack up against the worlds best (That's the basic premise of the game).
After choosing your difficulty setting (White, Green, Blue, Red or Black), you hit the track for some high intense time trial racing.
Solo racing enables gamers the options to knock off best times whilst unlocking harder tracks and harder levels. Each time is recorded, with Personal Best, Local Records and World Records tracked.
Ladder Points are displayed after races and Medal Rankings are given after beating time trials.
Times are posted online and compared to gamers from your town, country and worldwide. World Records are ridiculously hard to crack (or even come close to), so alot of practice and Trackmania hours are needed to reach that "Brock'esque" level of racing.
Trackmania 2: Canyon
Advanced hosting and customisation possibilities make Trackmania a pure online game. Dedicated servers and regionalised leaderboards take the game to pure 'global' status. Everyone can host a game and everyone can be a champion (to an extent).
Multiplayer mode allows racers to join a game and race off against a number of other gamers from around the world (Network capacity allows up to 200 players to race simultaneously on the one track).
200 Cars on the One Track??? How does that bloody work???
Good thing you asked. Despite a lot of other gamers vying for top time, you are only ever racing against yourself. The other cars are visible, but you can drive right through them and visa-versa.
Now, onto the game play.
Car handling is good and easy to master. Accelerate, Brake, Left and Right. Once you have those 4 buttons sorted, you should be fine.
Trackmania 2: Canyon
The tracks are all well designed (albeit somewhat tricky). Whether it be climbing walls, narrow tunneling or falling off cliffs, the challenges are plenty.
Map creation and Track Building is the second half to Trackmania 2: Canyon.
A robust map editor based on a bloc system allows every player the capabilities to create and share their own original racetrack. The created tracks are easily uploaded and accessible from the game browser.
The Track Creation includes fun LOL Maps; short, humorous challenges and Full Speed Maps, highly detailed and highly challenging (for the more hardened racer).
Time and patience are required when creating tracks. It's not too difficult, but it's not much fun either. It's much more fun burning rubber around a racetrack attempting to beat the track record held by a 12 year old kid from Texas.
Trackmania 2: Canyon
Trackmania 2: Canyon will appeal to the online gamer. If you come to this game expecting a 'Need For Speed' or a 'Midnight Club', you will be disappointed, it's a different kettle of fish entirely and it's meant to be.
Since the last Trackmania game, in 2008, the popularity of the game has grown substantially and the excitement and anticipation of Canyon was well worth it.
Trackmania 2: Canyon is fun and addictive, it will bring you back for more and more.
Game: Trackmania 2: Canyon
System: Nadeo
Developer/Co-Developer: Ubisoft
Publisher: Ubisoft
