After this video, I had to look up the Star Wars Metallica track. Found it here: ruclips.net/video/9WlaiITunWI/видео.html I like the in game comment that says "this track is the least fun and also the most fun"
Well sir I've been calling Tackmania the CS of racing game since the release of the new one as a way to try to incite my friends to join me on it ! I'm glad to see we'r not alone :)
This is my first experience with the TM series and I'm having so much fun. I'll never be a very "good" player but the core mechanics and oodles of content is amazing.
Preach! A large problem is Nadeos advertisement focus on the French and secondly european community. They don't truly believe they can become that game, and this holds them back. This game is insanely popular in france and that makes absolutely no sense. Especially as ping doesn't matter in this game so this has the best setup for a global game.
It's not that popular in France tbh. As a french, I can say a lot of people never heard about the game before a famous streamer (zerator) started pushing it to the public by organizing a huge and fun tournament every year. So now a lot of people know about it in french-speaking countries especially, but before that it was really not that popular. Just to say that even in France, Nadeo doesn't communicate much about their game.
@@WhoMoDa False. Trackmania and Internet existed way before 2020 you know... As far as I remember Trackmania Forever was big in 2008 (It was a time when games didn't need streamer/influencer 's approval to be considered famous). The video game industry really changed in the last decade, there's way much more competition nowadays.
This game looks dope! I didn't even see this game come out and after watching the video, I'm surprised this never appeared on my radar. Certainly interested to try it out now!
Trackmania 2020 has the Destiny problem: the core gameplay is arguably the best of its kind, but everything around it is so obtuse that you need a mountain of patience if you want to engage on a level deeper than mindless grinding. I want to play more of both but just the thought of booting either of them up is exhausting.
That's a great comparison, and I agree for the most part, but the main difference is that all you have to do is navigate to a server in Trackmania and then you can basically do nothing but play the game for hours. In Destiny, working with the UI is a huge part of the game, which makes it more problematic imo.
Played TM games for 13 years regularly at this point and i couldn't agree more on all of your points, it's a shame that this beautiful game never found a way to really sky rocket in popularity, but it's really just to blame on Nadeo and then Ubisoft for how they handle things.
I've been playing these games since Nations, I've always been a bit rubbish at them, but man do I love them and I really agree with you on this; weird obtuseness and community driven stupidity is such a part of the game's soul that whenever they try and streamline it like in Turbo or 2020 it never feels quite right, even when the focus is on this perfect racing, trackmania always has had something a bit more that makes it more lovable but way more obtuse. The one thing that does sadden me about 2020 though is the default standars subscription takin away your ability to change your skin, that one hurts the most as repping my awful paint jobs felt like such a core part of the experience. Having a Union Flag forced on me as someone who, especially these days is anything but patriotic really rubs me the wrong way...It's weird because 2020's graphics and new tiles and new track editor is so good but damn does that club subscription just make me kinda depressed sometimes; Trackmania is at its best when we're all in this weirdness together, a weirdness we all made for ourselves, and also when you look at the value compared to something like "United Forever" it's kinda depressing. Yet 2020 is so perfected in its look and design now I still play it regardless of if I think it's missing a bit of the heart of TM....This franchise is cognitive dissonance all over xD man do I love it though.
Yeah, I also really don't like to ride with the flag of my country tbh... I think it would be nice to at least let us paint a bit or choose a color or sthg
Agreed, I really do miss the ridiculous janky vibe that TMUF had. Stupid minigames galore, TM Carpark skins galore.. TM2 kept that vibe pretty well, for a time at least, and Maniapark is still a reasonably active site. I just don't get what the hell Nadeo is doing anymore, I wonder if it'd just be better to stick to TM2 environments forever rather than pumping out new numbered entries.
when i was in primary school, this game was downloaded on all the school computers, no one knew where it came from but we lived and died by that game. every class on the computers everyone played it, after school clubs, lunchtimes. trackmania was our thing, no one else knew about it. when i saw the new version (2020) released i got it immediately. played it for the first time in almost 10 years. cried. can die in peace now.
I think it says a lot about the UI that when you mentioned "level 16" at 7:27, I genuinely couldn't even find that number and had to rewind the video to give myself enough time to parse the layout
That is not nadeo neither noone that made the game's decision to be like that UI from servers is from server controllers, made and coded by players themselves. So yea from someone who plays it for years, I like it, but it is definetely not that friendly at start.
If you want to hear some real shenanigans, look up "Ross's Game Dungeon" (made by the same guy as Freeman's Mind) and the episode on Trackmania 2 Canyon. To put it simply, they pulled a real sneaky move with that game.
they ported the game from DX9 to DX11 and in a baffling Nadeo move they switched from pre-rendered lighting to real-time the game also relied on some DX9 tricks that were just gone, so... say goodbye to car shadows from lamps outside of replays! the weird thing is the replay editor has all the removed graphical features but they're not in the game itself??????
Wondering "How the hell did that guy finish in 1:40 if my best time is 2:10", then figuring it out and beating it in 1:35 just before the timer is over is an incredibly unique joy. @edit heh accidental timestamps
That idea of the jank being part of the experience, and having fun sleuthing through it, is one of the exact reasons I love the Earth Defense Force series.
I actually bought the wrong trackmania when I wanted this year's one. That's just a taste of how confusing and utterly amateurish so much of Nadeo's work here is.It's still an amazingly fun game though, so it kinda balances out.
Thank you for spotlighting this wonderful franchise! I've only played Nations Forever, a tiny amount of Turbo, and then 2020, but I've sunk way too many hours into Nations Forever and 2020. These are some of my favorite racing games out there, and I hope to see the community behind them grow!
I used to play a lot of Sunrise back in the day, so I gave this a download to try it out. You know why it isn't bigger? Because Ubisoft ruined it. Why do AAA developers feel the need to squeeze money out of players? Don't they have enough money as-is? Why the hell should I pay $30 a year to use a car skin or track that I DESIGNED? Better yet, why should I pay a company yearly money for tracks other players put hard work into? Don't you see that instead of designing creative maps themselves, they have the players do all the work while sitting back and making all the money? Not only that, but the UI looks like something out of a 3 day Unity project. No settings? No control mapping? The laziest tutorial mode I've ever seen? The reason this game isn't big is because they went for the "nostalgia" route. The game itself isn't very good or well designed, but players who played old TM games will enjoy it and waste money on it. It won't get big because they're playing the nostalgia card on a very small target audience. This is hardly a game. There's no passion behind its development, only in its community. It's strictly a cash grab. EDIT: Found the settings menu. Move the cursor to the top of your screen and a small drop down menus pops up. Still terrible UI, but at least there actually is a settings menu.
No problem with the game itself, but as an outsider to the franchise and racing games in general, found the UI disgusting/unfinished and the subscription annoying. I think those 2 things alone are gonna drive away people as it certainly did me.
@Toxic Potato Hey like I said, no problem with the game itself. It's fun and great that the base features are free. Was just trying to justify why it might not be as popular as it could be :)
@@DarkNightRJ $10/anytime isn't much at all, but that shit starts to add up quick. Point being, it's a huge turn-off and nobody is paying that crap for a neglected franchise.
I've adored Trackmania since United, and with the return of Formula 1 irl, F1 2020, and Trackmania last month, July was a really good month for racing games. Having put a bunch of time into both TM and F1 2020, they're both great games, but I honestly think Trackmania is a better F1 racing experience than 2020. I got the club subscription, so I'm all in for the next year, but it's exactly what I needed right now. More people should be talking about Trackmania, and you're right the only proper coverage I saw was on Giant Bomb, RUclipsrs who already were popular from previous TM games, and now you!
I loved the original free-to-play Trackmania game (Nations?)! I wanted to try one of the newer ones some years ago, but it was honestly hard to find out which of the myriad new games to buy, so I ended up buying none, and played the original for a bit. Nadeo's business model doesn't really make sense as you mention, and with that in mind, I would not really be comfortable with buying anything from them, unless they prove some sort of coherence and consistency. The gameplay is great, but everything else, from their different games, to their horrible UI, to the "not-a-subscription" model, seems so vague and weirdly put together, and not professional. Thankfully the OG still holds up though!
I just downloaded Trackmania, not necessarily because of this video, but I did recall seeing this video. After playing it for a bit, I decided to come and rewatch this video to see what I thought. I then realized that the video was three months old. I swear I saw this video like a year ago. I'm losing my mind.
I've been playing TrackMania since the first game in the series, and I will say that I totally agree with everything here. The random and zany creations of the playerbase is what makes the game have such a long lifespan, and is also what makes the game so fun to just come back to. The game caters to the entire spectrum: Anywhere from players who just want to try out or create new user-generated content, to those who want to play the most technical of tracks and get that extra 0.001 knocked off their time to get the world record, to those who just want to mess with the replay editor and make things like the "1K Project". The experience is totally customizable and that makes the game so fun for people who like that. It's also totally playable without any customization, which means people who just want to play an arcade racing game with crazy physics and precise controls can do so without needing to make a car or anything first. The reason people still play "Nations Forever" is because it's free and already has gigatons of content available to just download and play, partially because it's been around for so long (and it has more blocks to use than the original "Nations ESWC" game, though as far as I know it is backwards compatible to play those old tracks too). I can't blame them, Stadium is an amazing environment to play in with tight, responsive controls, lots of tech skill, and a huge variety of blocks to choose from. Personally, "United Forever" (the paid version of Nations Forever) is one of my favorites in the series. It has 7 environments (Three from "Original": Desert, Rally, and Snow. Three from "Sunrise": Island, Bay, and Coast. One from "Nations": Stadium.) so there's even more variety to choose from, and you can still play on Stadium with anyone who only has Nations Forever. TrackMania 2020 is a massively revamped version of Nations Forever (or even TM2 Stadium), granted, with a lot of massive changes too. A lot of blocks were cut to make room for other blocks. Automatic placement and removal of support blocks on roads. Plenty of quality of life features in the editor that past games never had. TrackMania's menus have always been relatively simple until ManiaPlanet happened, then they tried to make it as modular as they could to support future titles (we never got QuestMania btw! I wanna make that rpg!). TM2020 tried to make the main menu split into multiple sections but they aren't quite labelled the way I'd like. "Live" isn't super clear- it's both the live event (Summer 2020 right now) and online play at the same time. Having to create a club to upload your skin to it, just to re-download your own skin to apply it is weird, but I get why it's there. It's so people can't upload inappropriate skins like you could on older titles (since skins were p2p back then). It also solves the problem of people being unable to see your skin because of a firewall blocking the p2p traffic. I'd say go get TM2020 if you want to see a modern take on the game, but if you wanna try a free one, then I highly recommend Nations Forever. It's on Steam as well, even if it doesn't integrate into your steam account (you still make a Nadeo account). It has loads of content for a free game and is very much worth your time.
As a longtime player I feel ashamed that Trackmania never really made its way up to higher playercounts. I guess the lack of competition in this gamegenre might be one of the problems why Nadeo is so slow to fix bugs. Nontheless great video!
I used to play nations and around the time this game came out, I headed over to a friend’s house. He and I both love racing and gaming in general, and so I told them about the new Trackmania. A quick install, a controller plugged in and a local multiplayer match made, and he was hooked. Just goes to show how the formula stacks up, the addictive nature and the high skill ceiling makes you want perfection. I’ve never really replayed games to master them, but for the first time, Trackmania made me do it, the number of how well the rest of the world stacks up is so enticing. one time I did one level particularly well and I saw that the rest of Australia was within beating distance. For the first time in my life, I beat the rest of my country, I beat 25 million people, and that’s why I feel it’s addicting, the whole “I can do better” mentality after completing a course.
you hit the mark on everything you said about this game! you've got to be part of the community to know what many of the details. good video! i hope this will be yet another step closer to nadeo listening and actually making their game better
track mania and trials are two of the best zen games that should have a bigger following, for track mania its should just be appreciated more and trials i wish more people seen it as more than a "rage game"
I've been playing since the original Trackmania and really liked pretty much every entry. I was obsessed when Trackmania United was the new thing, which is still my favorite Trackmania with that vast amount of different track types. But nowadays I only play Trackmania²: Canyon online occasionally because it's such a simple, mindless game and I haven't tried any of the ones that came after it like Lagoon and Turbo. When I read about TrackMania 2020 I didn't know what to think of it because it literally just looked like Trackmanioa²: Stadium with some new track parts. So seeing you praise it like this is fascinating to me.
"Constant repetition" is why I can't get into this type of game. It's interesting hearing someone celebrate it, because it helps me qualify more specifically why I find it so hard to stick with certain genres like racing games even when I enjoy them in the short term.
I've never been interested in the online parts of Trackmania but for me, it was the first game I played where I had the ability to create basically anything I wanted. From cities to mazes to weird stunt maps. I still view it as the game that got me into programming in the first place because I find it gives the same amazing feeling when creating something. Just a truly amazing game that gave me the ability to express my creativity in a way that I could experiment first hand afterwards.
In France we have a popular streamer ZeratoR who holds a yearly competition called Trackmania Cup, it's one of the largest esports events of France, gathering thousands of fans in actual stadiums to watch people compete on bizarre circuits made by ZeratoR himself This year's TMCUP was held online and has ended last week, gathering as much as over 100,000 viewers on Twitch for the grand finale alone. I highly suggest you check it out !
I still remember loosing hundreds of hours playing sunrise 12 years ago when I was in school. I found the game years after its release but I enjoyed it so much every other game took a back seat that year. I do enjoy big name releases, but all these niche games with really incredible game play is what got me into gaming as my passion.
Funny, i tend to think the reason "good" racing games see little traction on PC is that the genre is dominated by car fetishists and simulation purists, similar to how flight combat games have steadily been pressured out of the market by fetishistic sims.
@Henry-Bart Simulations that put all the effort into realism rather than into gameplay being enjoyable or accessible. They're for people who want to experience as close to the real world eversion as possible without the risk of death. I like this kind of thing in flight sims - my favourite is War Thunder (though I absolutely suck at it).
When I first started playing Trackmania, I loved the look and feel of the UI cluttered with with different track records and such. I gave it this "official" vibe to me that really made me feel like I was partaking in something special. It also gave a sense that the community was really alive and active.
I miss the vehicle handling from TM2 Canyon, that's easily my favorite vehicle in any game for how incredibly good it feels to get the perfect drift around an awkward corner or a long turn along a ridgeline.
Been playing Trackmania Nations since 2013, TM2's release model and Maniaplanet confused me too much to get into it, but I had no idea this 2020 game released! Thank you for this video! I'm not a hardcore person (almost never touched multiplayer or user-made content) but I really want to give all that a try now!
Some years ago I picked up that free version of Trackmania and played it for about a week (my laptop then died for some unrelated reason). I have only one memory of the game from that time: some European server that was blasting German music which introduced me to a song by a guy named Mickie Krauss about a girl who only wore shoes. And nothing else. What a strange week that was.
Found the game about a month and a half ago, had never played 1 before. I'm an American and am already ranked in the top 30 in the country lol it's so small here. Game is so satisfying, but it really needs additional multiplayer modes (primarily for new players) if it is to ever blow up. The matchmaking beta is nice but needs to be expanded upon
This video brings back so many memories. As a rule among my friends, we wouldn't hit R after falling off the track, once you fell off it was game over :D
Great video as always. I really enjoyed the indescribable strangeness I've always felt about the franchise spoken into existence, I've never consciously thought about it. AccursedFarms retrospective on Canyon from the past year is a treat as well, mainly because he frames the "plot" of the game as some eccentric billionaire creating these insane racetracks in the desert for some perverse pleasure
It's kind of big once a year in France thanks to the Zrt cup organized by French streamer Zerator, he usually fills huge spaces with spectators (though not in 2020 for covid reasons) last edition had more than 5k participants and more than 140k viewers for the finals
I've seen so many cool clips of this game that I didn't even know were from this game. I thought that any clip id seen was just a map mod someone made for GTA 5 or something as I'd never played that game either. Also all of the clips I've seen were so smooth that I thought the players were just holding forward and the map took care of the rest. I'm pretty amazed to find out that those players were just so skilled that I didn't even know they were playing lol
Hey, just discovered this channel; really loving your content :D (And thanks for being a Scottish guy who isn't rolling his T's into a pseudo-american accent; feels really nice and natural to have a familiar accent narrating, cheers!)
Best couch partygame. Just one controller needed, super easy to pick up and no ones ego gets hurt like they sometimes do with cod, Mario Party or fifa. Always a guarantee for joyous mayhem.
Trackmania Turbo was one of the first games I went to get when I bought an Xbox One. Would be nice if it was supported in some way. If they took the Trials Rising route and had a university to learn all the various skills, and had skill games too.
I think they didn't like the word subscription because you usually associate it with having to cancel it in order to stop paying. For Trackmania you have to initiate the payment separately before each year
I hear your excitement and I love how much Trackmania has gripped you. It's really contagious energy, .. but I'd still probably only play it for the pikachu in a kart >.>
Superb breakdown, I couldn't have said it myself. I'm also really surprised that the general public hasn't latched onto this like they did with Fortnight.
I just downloaded this game last night and I instantly felt its potential. I didn't know it has multiple previous versions but I could tell this game could be special. Im excited to dig deep and explore the community more.
Tbh, I'm glad I started with turbo, turbo at least feels moderately competent compared the rest of the series, giving me a good starting point to start with the rest of the series
The biggest problem trackmania has is Nadeo itself, but It feels like only Nadeo can really deliver a proper Trackmania Gameplay. I dont think a other studio can help here. Trackmania 2020 feels like the last game when it fails and I hope this alone will get nadeo to wake up and improve on this excelent formular.
Still play Tm2S with friends. It has become a place for friendly competition and funny social moments. Some people go to the bar, I come to trackmania. We are slowly bringing back the nostalgia in a 'dead' game.
I loved the free version, training and summer 2020 was so much fun but I don't really want to subscribe when everything else feels like such a mess. The U.I is legitimiately baffling, I had to google how do i play multiplayer and theres only one map set for playing multiplayer? (maybe theres a server picking type thing but I haven't found it). The multiplayer maps last for barely any time for people who aren't used to playing, it feels like just when you barely get used to the map and are ready to start putting down some times, well too bad its time for the next map. Also, it's a fun game but there are lots of other fun games out there as well where I don't have to deal with "jumping in the deep end" because the old guard really likes their specific brand of noob unfriendly or gatekeeping features. But hey I just personally dont like having to deal with a mess before i can get to enjoy the game properly. I can see why someone who had done that might feel like they should retain it so that everyone else propperly "earned" their ability to enjoy the game just like you did. Well I didn't earn it and I guess I'm not going to be part of the community. This game has so much potential but I don't think I'll be playing it anymore until we get the next map set after summer 2020 and only for the solo play part.
Trackmania certainly was one of my favorite games back in the day. I loved to create tracks and then race against myself. Good times. Didn’t know they were still around.
Nations forever has a great solution. You can play online with your basic free account but after a while you got freezoned and you can't play for a while (online). But you can upgrade your account to United forever and play as much as you want. Another thing is that you can download and import maps from independent creators and see set records online. Good stuff.
I remember the first time I stepped into a Speed server on nations. I was grinning like an idiot for the first 10 minutes until I saw the insane times people were putting down. Then I decided to try to get better and in every server, I'm always that lone American in the middle of the pack and that feels kinda nice tbh
I loved the older one. Building crazy tracks was my life as I was younger. That’s all I did! Played this new one but was harder to get into. I liked the old one with muscle cars, suvs and rally cars. With different terrain.
I remember years ago I used to play a bit of TrackMania Nations Forever, really liked the feel of the game and how there's tons of dumb tracks you can try to gradually get better and better at against your friends
The "not really a subscription" comment that started all the drama was actually kinda correct, it was just badly explained. It's close to a classic subscription because you pay every year, but it's different since here you can keep everything you paid for (mainly season tracks and advanced editor). Think of it like a Netflix where you could keep watching shows you completed even after dropping the subscription
I wouldn't say it is not well known. The thing is, it doesn't get advertised as much as those AAA titles, like Need for Speed or Forza Horizon. Trackmania Nations was the most played MMO Racer and still might be (because there are not many MMO Racers to be precise but whatever).
Damn... I always had so much fun with friends in Trackmania Nations. I remember Trackmania 2 being released but I somehow just never got back into it. I might try this though. I remember always thinking that there's no other racing game with a better sense of speed than Trackmania. And the pure joy of nailing a run is just unmatched by any other racing game.
I haven't played Trackmania in years - I didn't know they just released a revamped Stadium/Nations. After watching I went and downloaded it again, and played for a couple hours... it all comes back, like riding a bike. I agree with everything you said in the video, it's such a wonderful game, shame about everything else. The community is so great too. During this first session I raced with two other guys for the bulk of the time, with other dudes filtering in and out. Upon beating the leader's time by half a second, he gave me a "nt" (Nice Time). I totally forgot that people did that, it's so nice. Like you said, everyone is racing themselves... together.
Other racing games give you a car that handles poorly and is slow to accelerate. Trackmania gives you the most perfect car reasonably possible, and makes the challenge come from the insane maps. That's how I've always sold it to friends
I've never really thought about it before, but you're spot on that the utter confusion over what is or isn't the newest/main version, and the poor UI and sign-up experience within each game is probably why I've not played trackmania more. It's also particularly baffling in light of how the business model for monetising such games through loot crates, skin downloads, etc has been well established recently. Make the game free, make money off cool custom skins etc.
the problem is that user creation is a huge part of the game and implementing microtransactions would most likely destroy that, resulting in an even bigger backlash.
@roboDog86 It gets a restart right now. The past competitions never were that interesting to me. The maps were very chaotic and strange to me, somehow I did not like that. But now the Grand League tracks are all masterpieces. They look great, they showcase all the features that comes with Trackmania 2020, and watching them is as fun as never before. It is the first time that I followed any esports match at all. The stories there, especially for Riolu always getting 9th place with that points system - it is very captivating.
A lot of the issue with this game growing is its existing player base and what they want. Older editions are a fairly pure and tight time trial game, while newer ones add a lot more gimmicks and arcade racery features to attract a wider audience. That combined with the weird payment methods and increasing costs is why I haven't touched anything newer than the TM2 games. None of the content in the 2020 version is what I normally play on stadium, and if it exists I have no idea which not-subscription tier its gated behind but I do know that at a minimum of $10 a year, it costs more than the $9 I paid to play stadium for over 7 years
After having bought a key on Steam for TMUF, and then getting told that the very key it presents to me upon startup is incorrect and never being able to play it, my interest and support died immediately. 9 years ago, Steam says. Shame, really.
Went to try it out after watching and wow, not kidding about the menus. It was hard to even find the settings, and no idea how you're supposed to change your car skin.
The way Nadeo handles Trackmania and changes the UI with each new version scares me. But I'm glad that against all odds it lives on thanks to the excellent core experience. I like a lot about TM 2020 and I hope they just keep refining it.
the thing is, it was pretty huge back when it was new. this is just the same game as it was ~15 years ago with some new pieces. when i feel like playing it, i can just play the ones i already have (which is all the ones before this one)
Wait, it's already out? I completely forgot that it was releasing this soon, guess I should give it a try at some point, I really enjoyed Nations and Canyon so this should be fun.
as an individual who plays sim racing titles, this game interests me for the aspect of hotlapping tracks, but when i consider pursuing those goals i just get the urge to boot up iRacing or something. the aspects of perfecting lap times and mastering the mechanics of the game are what makes *real racing fun*, so Trackmania doesn't quite offer anything new in that sense. it offers to be a pick-up-and-play controller racer arcade game but without a following for this genre of game i don't see what they could really do to garner more interest. the game straddles a VERY niche line between two typically exclusive communities -- racing games, and platformers. if you're into racing games like Forza Horizon or Need For Speed, then *maybe* this appeals to you just a little bit (unless it's the customization that you like about the other two titles), but if you're into games like Assetto Corsa and iRacing then this game looks to you how Fortnite looks to CSGO players. i honestly believe that if you approach this game with the anticipation of a wildly-inventive "platformer" then you're going to be very pleased with your experience because it does kind-of play like a fast-paced 3PP platformer, but the people who play Spelunky or The Binding of Isaac aren't going to look at this game and see something they would enjoy, because to them it just looks like another (albeit kookier-than-average) racing game.
"I write about some racing games that are getting me through a mental health crisis" I hit like before watching the rest of the video. Racing games are comfort food for the soul. P. S. I did watch the entire video, loved it. You've earned a sub :)
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After this video, I had to look up the Star Wars Metallica track. Found it here: ruclips.net/video/9WlaiITunWI/видео.html I like the in game comment that says "this track is the least fun and also the most fun"
To see someone gush over Trackmania makes me so happy! It's basically the Counter-strike of racing games if that doesn't sound completely bonkers.
I lost so much time in college
playing TrackMania Nations on my laptop 😅
actually it sounds perfect! i played a lot of shooter and racing games and it is very accurate
Well sir I've been calling Tackmania the CS of racing game since the release of the new one as a way to try to incite my friends to join me on it ! I'm glad to see we'r not alone :)
This is my first experience with the TM series and I'm having so much fun. I'll never be a very "good" player but the core mechanics and oodles of content is amazing.
except cs is trash
Preach!
A large problem is Nadeos advertisement focus on the French and secondly european community.
They don't truly believe they can become that game, and this holds them back. This game is insanely popular in france and that makes absolutely no sense.
Especially as ping doesn't matter in this game so this has the best setup for a global game.
The game just happens to really specifically appeal to french people Kappa.
There is a reason motorsport started in France tbh
It's not that popular in France tbh. As a french, I can say a lot of people never heard about the game before a famous streamer (zerator) started pushing it to the public by organizing a huge and fun tournament every year. So now a lot of people know about it in french-speaking countries especially, but before that it was really not that popular. Just to say that even in France, Nadeo doesn't communicate much about their game.
@@WhoMoDa False. Trackmania and Internet existed way before 2020 you know...
As far as I remember Trackmania Forever was big in 2008 (It was a time when games didn't need streamer/influencer 's approval to be considered famous).
The video game industry really changed in the last decade, there's way much more competition nowadays.
oh wow, i just realized i've never seen an american person or barely anyone outside of europe playing trackmania
This game looks dope! I didn't even see this game come out and after watching the video, I'm surprised this never appeared on my radar. Certainly interested to try it out now!
A wild KingK appears!
Seriously though, love your videos
The marketing for this was horrible only in French and like 3 tiny promotions at some events that's it
Has amazing graphics for how old it is
Definitely do! It's the perfect blend of arcade with sim, and it's one of my favorite games to veg out on Discord with some friends to.
Trackmania 2020 has the Destiny problem: the core gameplay is arguably the best of its kind, but everything around it is so obtuse that you need a mountain of patience if you want to engage on a level deeper than mindless grinding. I want to play more of both but just the thought of booting either of them up is exhausting.
That's a great comparison, and I agree for the most part, but the main difference is that all you have to do is navigate to a server in Trackmania and then you can basically do nothing but play the game for hours. In Destiny, working with the UI is a huge part of the game, which makes it more problematic imo.
In Destiny 2 you can't talk or chat with people in game. Thus, making it totally unnecessary to have people in the same world at all.
dont forget its not on steam
@@Tom3kkk Destiny 2 is though
It's what killed Shootmania, the competitive custom FPS from the same devs. They're absolutely awful at everything outside of the game design.
Played TM games for 13 years regularly at this point and i couldn't agree more on all of your points, it's a shame that this beautiful game never found a way to really sky rocket in popularity, but it's really just to blame on Nadeo and then Ubisoft for how they handle things.
henlo dubby how are you
@@Hunterlue gud :)
It's a small french studio backed by a large french studio, that are both out of touch with the world.
i am honestly sad that the community from back in the day is dead now. trackmania 2 buried the whole franchise.
I've been playing these games since Nations, I've always been a bit rubbish at them, but man do I love them and I really agree with you on this; weird obtuseness and community driven stupidity is such a part of the game's soul that whenever they try and streamline it like in Turbo or 2020 it never feels quite right, even when the focus is on this perfect racing, trackmania always has had something a bit more that makes it more lovable but way more obtuse.
The one thing that does sadden me about 2020 though is the default standars subscription takin away your ability to change your skin, that one hurts the most as repping my awful paint jobs felt like such a core part of the experience. Having a Union Flag forced on me as someone who, especially these days is anything but patriotic really rubs me the wrong way...It's weird because 2020's graphics and new tiles and new track editor is so good but damn does that club subscription just make me kinda depressed sometimes; Trackmania is at its best when we're all in this weirdness together, a weirdness we all made for ourselves, and also when you look at the value compared to something like "United Forever" it's kinda depressing. Yet 2020 is so perfected in its look and design now I still play it regardless of if I think it's missing a bit of the heart of TM....This franchise is cognitive dissonance all over xD
man do I love it though.
Yeah, I also really don't like to ride with the flag of my country tbh... I think it would be nice to at least let us paint a bit or choose a color or sthg
Agreed, I really do miss the ridiculous janky vibe that TMUF had. Stupid minigames galore, TM Carpark skins galore.. TM2 kept that vibe pretty well, for a time at least, and Maniapark is still a reasonably active site. I just don't get what the hell Nadeo is doing anymore, I wonder if it'd just be better to stick to TM2 environments forever rather than pumping out new numbered entries.
when i was in primary school, this game was downloaded on all the school computers, no one knew where it came from but we lived and died by that game. every class on the computers everyone played it, after school clubs, lunchtimes. trackmania was our thing, no one else knew about it. when i saw the new version (2020) released i got it immediately. played it for the first time in almost 10 years. cried. can die in peace now.
i like how at 4:23 you mention canyon, stadium, and lagoon, but show footage of valley and not even mention valley lol
Valley was great! It is extremely weird hearing anyone mention Lagoon exists.
I think it says a lot about the UI that when you mentioned "level 16" at 7:27, I genuinely couldn't even find that number and had to rewind the video to give myself enough time to parse the layout
Whoever thought of ordering these maps in columns instead of rows should get back to design school honestly
That is not nadeo neither noone that made the game's decision to be like that
UI from servers is from server controllers, made and coded by players themselves.
So yea from someone who plays it for years, I like it, but it is definetely not that friendly at start.
@@psychoedge I found it immediately, but then i was like 'how is 16 there' and I had to stare at it for a while
If you want to hear some real shenanigans, look up "Ross's Game Dungeon" (made by the same guy as Freeman's Mind) and the episode on Trackmania 2 Canyon. To put it simply, they pulled a real sneaky move with that game.
they ported the game from DX9 to DX11 and in a baffling Nadeo move they switched from pre-rendered lighting to real-time
the game also relied on some DX9 tricks that were just gone, so... say goodbye to car shadows from lamps outside of replays!
the weird thing is the replay editor has all the removed graphical features but they're not in the game itself??????
Just watched that video after your recommendation. That was a ride! Thanks.
that point about camaraderie among the ghosts 👌 that sort of ‘alone together’ stuff is so cool
Wondering "How the hell did that guy finish in 1:40 if my best time is 2:10", then figuring it out and beating it in 1:35 just before the timer is over is an incredibly unique joy.
@edit heh accidental timestamps
That idea of the jank being part of the experience, and having fun sleuthing through it, is one of the exact reasons I love the Earth Defense Force series.
I actually bought the wrong trackmania when I wanted this year's one. That's just a taste of how confusing and utterly amateurish so much of Nadeo's work here is.It's still an amazingly fun game though, so it kinda balances out.
Thank you for spotlighting this wonderful franchise! I've only played Nations Forever, a tiny amount of Turbo, and then 2020, but I've sunk way too many hours into Nations Forever and 2020. These are some of my favorite racing games out there, and I hope to see the community behind them grow!
I used to play a lot of Sunrise back in the day, so I gave this a download to try it out.
You know why it isn't bigger?
Because Ubisoft ruined it. Why do AAA developers feel the need to squeeze money out of players? Don't they have enough money as-is? Why the hell should I pay $30 a year to use a car skin or track that I DESIGNED? Better yet, why should I pay a company yearly money for tracks other players put hard work into? Don't you see that instead of designing creative maps themselves, they have the players do all the work while sitting back and making all the money? Not only that, but the UI looks like something out of a 3 day Unity project. No settings? No control mapping? The laziest tutorial mode I've ever seen?
The reason this game isn't big is because they went for the "nostalgia" route. The game itself isn't very good or well designed, but players who played old TM games will enjoy it and waste money on it. It won't get big because they're playing the nostalgia card on a very small target audience.
This is hardly a game. There's no passion behind its development, only in its community. It's strictly a cash grab.
EDIT: Found the settings menu. Move the cursor to the top of your screen and a small drop down menus pops up. Still terrible UI, but at least there actually is a settings menu.
No problem with the game itself, but as an outsider to the franchise and racing games in general, found the UI disgusting/unfinished and the subscription annoying. I think those 2 things alone are gonna drive away people as it certainly did me.
$10/year isn't bad at all. But yeah the UI is unusable
@Toxic Potato Hey like I said, no problem with the game itself. It's fun and great that the base features are free. Was just trying to justify why it might not be as popular as it could be :)
@@DarkNightRJ $10/anytime isn't much at all, but that shit starts to add up quick. Point being, it's a huge turn-off and nobody is paying that crap for a neglected franchise.
You can thank Ubishit for that. They have great devs TERRIBLE EXECUTIVES
Trackmania releases remind me of trying to keep up with the proper release order of all the Kingdom Hearts games 🤣.
eugh *_`¦ P_*
remember that Trackmania Turbo (DS) is not the same game as Trackmania Turbo (PC, PS4, X1) alright?
I've adored Trackmania since United, and with the return of Formula 1 irl, F1 2020, and Trackmania last month, July was a really good month for racing games.
Having put a bunch of time into both TM and F1 2020, they're both great games, but I honestly think Trackmania is a better F1 racing experience than 2020. I got the club subscription, so I'm all in for the next year, but it's exactly what I needed right now.
More people should be talking about Trackmania, and you're right the only proper coverage I saw was on Giant Bomb, RUclipsrs who already were popular from previous TM games, and now you!
I loved the original free-to-play Trackmania game (Nations?)! I wanted to try one of the newer ones some years ago, but it was honestly hard to find out which of the myriad new games to buy, so I ended up buying none, and played the original for a bit.
Nadeo's business model doesn't really make sense as you mention, and with that in mind, I would not really be comfortable with buying anything from them, unless they prove some sort of coherence and consistency. The gameplay is great, but everything else, from their different games, to their horrible UI, to the "not-a-subscription" model, seems so vague and weirdly put together, and not professional.
Thankfully the OG still holds up though!
I had an entire summer where basically all I did was play trackmania turbo. Absolutely no regrets.
I just downloaded Trackmania, not necessarily because of this video, but I did recall seeing this video. After playing it for a bit, I decided to come and rewatch this video to see what I thought. I then realized that the video was three months old. I swear I saw this video like a year ago. I'm losing my mind.
Ahh watching Jeff Gerstmann play Star Wars Metallica for hours on end gets me all misty eyed.
I've been playing TrackMania since the first game in the series, and I will say that I totally agree with everything here.
The random and zany creations of the playerbase is what makes the game have such a long lifespan, and is also what makes the game so fun to just come back to.
The game caters to the entire spectrum: Anywhere from players who just want to try out or create new user-generated content, to those who want to play the most technical of tracks and get that extra 0.001 knocked off their time to get the world record, to those who just want to mess with the replay editor and make things like the "1K Project".
The experience is totally customizable and that makes the game so fun for people who like that. It's also totally playable without any customization, which means people who just want to play an arcade racing game with crazy physics and precise controls can do so without needing to make a car or anything first.
The reason people still play "Nations Forever" is because it's free and already has gigatons of content available to just download and play, partially because it's been around for so long (and it has more blocks to use than the original "Nations ESWC" game, though as far as I know it is backwards compatible to play those old tracks too). I can't blame them, Stadium is an amazing environment to play in with tight, responsive controls, lots of tech skill, and a huge variety of blocks to choose from.
Personally, "United Forever" (the paid version of Nations Forever) is one of my favorites in the series. It has 7 environments (Three from "Original": Desert, Rally, and Snow. Three from "Sunrise": Island, Bay, and Coast. One from "Nations": Stadium.) so there's even more variety to choose from, and you can still play on Stadium with anyone who only has Nations Forever.
TrackMania 2020 is a massively revamped version of Nations Forever (or even TM2 Stadium), granted, with a lot of massive changes too. A lot of blocks were cut to make room for other blocks. Automatic placement and removal of support blocks on roads. Plenty of quality of life features in the editor that past games never had.
TrackMania's menus have always been relatively simple until ManiaPlanet happened, then they tried to make it as modular as they could to support future titles (we never got QuestMania btw! I wanna make that rpg!). TM2020 tried to make the main menu split into multiple sections but they aren't quite labelled the way I'd like. "Live" isn't super clear- it's both the live event (Summer 2020 right now) and online play at the same time. Having to create a club to upload your skin to it, just to re-download your own skin to apply it is weird, but I get why it's there. It's so people can't upload inappropriate skins like you could on older titles (since skins were p2p back then). It also solves the problem of people being unable to see your skin because of a firewall blocking the p2p traffic.
I'd say go get TM2020 if you want to see a modern take on the game, but if you wanna try a free one, then I highly recommend Nations Forever. It's on Steam as well, even if it doesn't integrate into your steam account (you still make a Nadeo account). It has loads of content for a free game and is very much worth your time.
If ever there's a lighthearted racing game that needs to be rebooted, it's Re-Volt. I absolutely loved that game.
As a longtime player I feel ashamed that Trackmania never really made its way up to higher playercounts. I guess the lack of competition in this gamegenre might be one of the problems why Nadeo is so slow to fix bugs. Nontheless great video!
love your vids, keep up the good work
My issue is that the titles are confusing (like 20 almost same games at different price points etc) and they for some reason refuse to work on my pc
I used to play nations and around the time this game came out, I headed over to a friend’s house. He and I both love racing and gaming in general, and so I told them about the new Trackmania. A quick install, a controller plugged in and a local multiplayer match made, and he was hooked. Just goes to show how the formula stacks up, the addictive nature and the high skill ceiling makes you want perfection. I’ve never really replayed games to master them, but for the first time, Trackmania made me do it, the number of how well the rest of the world stacks up is so enticing. one time I did one level particularly well and I saw that the rest of Australia was within beating distance. For the first time in my life, I beat the rest of my country, I beat 25 million people, and that’s why I feel it’s addicting, the whole “I can do better” mentality after completing a course.
I watch Northernlion play it all the time. Wish it was on consoles :(
TrackMania Turbo is on PS4/XOne
you hit the mark on everything you said about this game! you've got to be part of the community to know what many of the details. good video! i hope this will be yet another step closer to nadeo listening and actually making their game better
HELL YEAH. I am excited to watch this. Love you Hambo
track mania and trials are two of the best zen games that should have a bigger following, for track mania its should just be appreciated more and trials i wish more people seen it as more than a "rage game"
Trackmania Sunrise was my introduction to racing games. This was an absolutely excellent video, thanks for this!
I've been playing since the original Trackmania and really liked pretty much every entry. I was obsessed when Trackmania United was the new thing, which is still my favorite Trackmania with that vast amount of different track types. But nowadays I only play Trackmania²: Canyon online occasionally because it's such a simple, mindless game and I haven't tried any of the ones that came after it like Lagoon and Turbo.
When I read about TrackMania 2020 I didn't know what to think of it because it literally just looked like Trackmanioa²: Stadium with some new track parts. So seeing you praise it like this is fascinating to me.
It is Trackmania 2 Stadium with new parts. But then again, that alone SHOULD make a great package.
"Constant repetition" is why I can't get into this type of game. It's interesting hearing someone celebrate it, because it helps me qualify more specifically why I find it so hard to stick with certain genres like racing games even when I enjoy them in the short term.
trackmania is different
I've never been interested in the online parts of Trackmania but for me, it was the first game I played where I had the ability to create basically anything I wanted. From cities to mazes to weird stunt maps. I still view it as the game that got me into programming in the first place because I find it gives the same amazing feeling when creating something. Just a truly amazing game that gave me the ability to express my creativity in a way that I could experiment first hand afterwards.
In France we have a popular streamer ZeratoR who holds a yearly competition called Trackmania Cup, it's one of the largest esports events of France, gathering thousands of fans in actual stadiums to watch people compete on bizarre circuits made by ZeratoR himself
This year's TMCUP was held online and has ended last week, gathering as much as over 100,000 viewers on Twitch for the grand finale alone. I highly suggest you check it out !
I still remember loosing hundreds of hours playing sunrise 12 years ago when I was in school. I found the game years after its release but I enjoyed it so much every other game took a back seat that year. I do enjoy big name releases, but all these niche games with really incredible game play is what got me into gaming as my passion.
Funny, i tend to think the reason "good" racing games see little traction on PC is that the genre is dominated by car fetishists and simulation purists, similar to how flight combat games have steadily been pressured out of the market by fetishistic sims.
Rocket League is an exception (it's not really a racing game but it's a car game)
"Fetishistic" sims. Lol what a weird way to call them.
@Henry-Bart Simulations that put all the effort into realism rather than into gameplay being enjoyable or accessible. They're for people who want to experience as close to the real world eversion as possible without the risk of death. I like this kind of thing in flight sims - my favourite is War Thunder (though I absolutely suck at it).
When I first started playing Trackmania, I loved the look and feel of the UI cluttered with with different track records and such. I gave it this "official" vibe to me that really made me feel like I was partaking in something special. It also gave a sense that the community was really alive and active.
I miss the vehicle handling from TM2 Canyon, that's easily my favorite vehicle in any game for how incredibly good it feels to get the perfect drift around an awkward corner or a long turn along a ridgeline.
thankfully TM2 Canyon still has a ton of players online
"a ton" - well as much as a trackmania game can get in any case
Been playing Trackmania Nations since 2013, TM2's release model and Maniaplanet confused me too much to get into it, but I had no idea this 2020 game released! Thank you for this video! I'm not a hardcore person (almost never touched multiplayer or user-made content) but I really want to give all that a try now!
Some years ago I picked up that free version of Trackmania and played it for about a week (my laptop then died for some unrelated reason). I have only one memory of the game from that time: some European server that was blasting German music which introduced me to a song by a guy named Mickie Krauss about a girl who only wore shoes. And nothing else. What a strange week that was.
Found the game about a month and a half ago, had never played 1 before. I'm an American and am already ranked in the top 30 in the country lol it's so small here. Game is so satisfying, but it really needs additional multiplayer modes (primarily for new players) if it is to ever blow up. The matchmaking beta is nice but needs to be expanded upon
Man, the first and last time I played TrackMania was in 2003 at PDXLAN. Was loads of fun! Awesome to hear they're still producing titles!
This video brings back so many memories. As a rule among my friends, we wouldn't hit R after falling off the track, once you fell off it was game over :D
my biggest problem with TM2020 is the whole game is built around a feature which is exclusive to the highest level subscription
exactly my thoughts dude. I initially thought it was one of the many mistakes when they released the features table lol
Great video as always. I really enjoyed the indescribable strangeness I've always felt about the franchise spoken into existence, I've never consciously thought about it. AccursedFarms retrospective on Canyon from the past year is a treat as well, mainly because he frames the "plot" of the game as some eccentric billionaire creating these insane racetracks in the desert for some perverse pleasure
It's kind of big once a year in France thanks to the Zrt cup organized by French streamer Zerator, he usually fills huge spaces with spectators (though not in 2020 for covid reasons) last edition had more than 5k participants and more than 140k viewers for the finals
I've seen so many cool clips of this game that I didn't even know were from this game. I thought that any clip id seen was just a map mod someone made for GTA 5 or something as I'd never played that game either. Also all of the clips I've seen were so smooth that I thought the players were just holding forward and the map took care of the rest. I'm pretty amazed to find out that those players were just so skilled that I didn't even know they were playing lol
Hey, just discovered this channel; really loving your content :D (And thanks for being a Scottish guy who isn't rolling his T's into a pseudo-american accent; feels really nice and natural to have a familiar accent narrating, cheers!)
Best couch partygame. Just one controller needed, super easy to pick up and no ones ego gets hurt like they sometimes do with cod, Mario Party or fifa. Always a guarantee for joyous mayhem.
Trackmania Turbo was one of the first games I went to get when I bought an Xbox One. Would be nice if it was supported in some way.
If they took the Trials Rising route and had a university to learn all the various skills, and had skill games too.
I think they didn't like the word subscription because you usually associate it with having to cancel it in order to stop paying. For Trackmania you have to initiate the payment separately before each year
I was just doing the daily track, it's feels so good to improve in this game!
I hear your excitement and I love how much Trackmania has gripped you. It's really contagious energy, .. but I'd still probably only play it for the pikachu in a kart >.>
Superb breakdown, I couldn't have said it myself. I'm also really surprised that the general public hasn't latched onto this like they did with Fortnight.
I just downloaded this game last night and I instantly felt its potential. I didn't know it has multiple previous versions but I could tell this game could be special. Im excited to dig deep and explore the community more.
Tbh, I'm glad I started with turbo, turbo at least feels moderately competent compared the rest of the series, giving me a good starting point to start with the rest of the series
The biggest problem trackmania has is Nadeo itself, but It feels like only Nadeo can really deliver a proper Trackmania Gameplay.
I dont think a other studio can help here.
Trackmania 2020 feels like the last game when it fails and I hope this alone will get nadeo to wake up and improve on this excelent formular.
Still play Tm2S with friends. It has become a place for friendly competition and funny social moments. Some people go to the bar, I come to trackmania.
We are slowly bringing back the nostalgia in a 'dead' game.
I loved the free version, training and summer 2020 was so much fun but I don't really want to subscribe when everything else feels like such a mess.
The U.I is legitimiately baffling, I had to google how do i play multiplayer and theres only one map set for playing multiplayer? (maybe theres a server picking type thing but I haven't found it). The multiplayer maps last for barely any time for people who aren't used to playing, it feels like just when you barely get used to the map and are ready to start putting down some times, well too bad its time for the next map.
Also, it's a fun game but there are lots of other fun games out there as well where I don't have to deal with "jumping in the deep end" because the old guard really likes their specific brand of noob unfriendly or gatekeeping features. But hey I just personally dont like having to deal with a mess before i can get to enjoy the game properly. I can see why someone who had done that might feel like they should retain it so that everyone else propperly "earned" their ability to enjoy the game just like you did. Well I didn't earn it and I guess I'm not going to be part of the community.
This game has so much potential but I don't think I'll be playing it anymore until we get the next map set after summer 2020 and only for the solo play part.
Trackmania certainly was one of my favorite games back in the day. I loved to create tracks and then race against myself. Good times. Didn’t know they were still around.
Nations forever has a great solution. You can play online with your basic free account but after a while you got freezoned and you can't play for a while (online). But you can upgrade your account to United forever and play as much as you want. Another thing is that you can download and import maps from independent creators and see set records online. Good stuff.
I mean, to download custom user skins you just click the box on the top right of the window and it shows up in your skin list
I remember the first time I stepped into a Speed server on nations. I was grinning like an idiot for the first 10 minutes until I saw the insane times people were putting down. Then I decided to try to get better and in every server, I'm always that lone American in the middle of the pack and that feels kinda nice tbh
damn there was a lando norris club on track mania and then some f1 gameplay? maybe next years racing game video could be about that series 🥺
This is cool, i had a really similar experience with trackmania in 2020/21 , the anti anxiety and reminder im not alone vibes. Descenders too
I loved the older one. Building crazy tracks was my life as I was younger. That’s all I did! Played this new one but was harder to get into. I liked the old one with muscle cars, suvs and rally cars. With different terrain.
I remember years ago I used to play a bit of TrackMania Nations Forever, really liked the feel of the game and how there's tons of dumb tracks you can try to gradually get better and better at against your friends
The "not really a subscription" comment that started all the drama was actually kinda correct, it was just badly explained. It's close to a classic subscription because you pay every year, but it's different since here you can keep everything you paid for (mainly season tracks and advanced editor). Think of it like a Netflix where you could keep watching shows you completed even after dropping the subscription
I wouldn't say it is not well known. The thing is, it doesn't get advertised as much as those AAA titles, like Need for Speed or Forza Horizon. Trackmania Nations was the most played MMO Racer and still might be (because there are not many MMO Racers to be precise but whatever).
Damn... I always had so much fun with friends in Trackmania Nations. I remember Trackmania 2 being released but I somehow just never got back into it. I might try this though. I remember always thinking that there's no other racing game with a better sense of speed than Trackmania. And the pure joy of nailing a run is just unmatched by any other racing game.
I haven't played Trackmania in years - I didn't know they just released a revamped Stadium/Nations. After watching I went and downloaded it again, and played for a couple hours... it all comes back, like riding a bike. I agree with everything you said in the video, it's such a wonderful game, shame about everything else.
The community is so great too. During this first session I raced with two other guys for the bulk of the time, with other dudes filtering in and out. Upon beating the leader's time by half a second, he gave me a "nt" (Nice Time). I totally forgot that people did that, it's so nice. Like you said, everyone is racing themselves... together.
I found this game through a game called "Track Racing Online", which was a free online clone of Trackmania Nations (including the same tracks).
I just reinstallee Trackmania Nations forever last week👌🏻
Other racing games give you a car that handles poorly and is slow to accelerate. Trackmania gives you the most perfect car reasonably possible, and makes the challenge come from the insane maps. That's how I've always sold it to friends
I've never really thought about it before, but you're spot on that the utter confusion over what is or isn't the newest/main version, and the poor UI and sign-up experience within each game is probably why I've not played trackmania more. It's also particularly baffling in light of how the business model for monetising such games through loot crates, skin downloads, etc has been well established recently. Make the game free, make money off cool custom skins etc.
Great video, probably one of the best anyone has ever made on TM.
Nadeo and Ubisoft really should watch that video.
i think it needs to be TOTAL free to play not just free time trials on one track. if it gets the F2P with micro transactions it will be HUGE
the problem is that user creation is a huge part of the game and implementing microtransactions would most likely destroy that, resulting in an even bigger backlash.
Goddamn, I miss Trackmania. It was all the rage when I was in middle/high school. I got to like the top 500 worldwide ranking.
@roboDog86 It gets a restart right now. The past competitions never were that interesting to me. The maps were very chaotic and strange to me, somehow I did not like that. But now the Grand League tracks are all masterpieces. They look great, they showcase all the features that comes with Trackmania 2020, and watching them is as fun as never before.
It is the first time that I followed any esports match at all. The stories there, especially for Riolu always getting 9th place with that points system - it is very captivating.
6:12 at the moment i read the comment on the screenshot and saw how that Nadeo staff member replied, i thought "what a frenchy thing to do"
Haven't gotten the chance to play Trackmania yet, but you analysis reminds me of how I feel about Distance.
Trackmania is the only series that has been able to recapture the feeling i had playing SF Rush and Rush 2
A lot of the issue with this game growing is its existing player base and what they want. Older editions are a fairly pure and tight time trial game, while newer ones add a lot more gimmicks and arcade racery features to attract a wider audience. That combined with the weird payment methods and increasing costs is why I haven't touched anything newer than the TM2 games. None of the content in the 2020 version is what I normally play on stadium, and if it exists I have no idea which not-subscription tier its gated behind but I do know that at a minimum of $10 a year, it costs more than the $9 I paid to play stadium for over 7 years
After having bought a key on Steam for TMUF, and then getting told that the very key it presents to me upon startup is incorrect and never being able to play it, my interest and support died immediately. 9 years ago, Steam says. Shame, really.
Undoubtedly reignited my passion to play. Thank you!
Went to try it out after watching and wow, not kidding about the menus. It was hard to even find the settings, and no idea how you're supposed to change your car skin.
Yeah, attempted to get into it but was confused by all the releases, launchers, subs, etc that i didn't bother and moved on.
The way Nadeo handles Trackmania and changes the UI with each new version scares me. But I'm glad that against all odds it lives on thanks to the excellent core experience. I like a lot about TM 2020 and I hope they just keep refining it.
It didn't help either that the announcement was entirely in french with no subtitles and the english translated vod was taken down
Trackmania is probably the first PC game I ever played in my home...! I remember I had the DS game too, and it was still awesome there.
the thing is, it was pretty huge back when it was new.
this is just the same game as it was ~15 years ago with some new pieces. when i feel like playing it, i can just play the ones i already have (which is all the ones before this one)
Wait, it's already out? I completely forgot that it was releasing this soon, guess I should give it a try at some point, I really enjoyed Nations and Canyon so this should be fun.
as an individual who plays sim racing titles, this game interests me for the aspect of hotlapping tracks, but when i consider pursuing those goals i just get the urge to boot up iRacing or something. the aspects of perfecting lap times and mastering the mechanics of the game are what makes *real racing fun*, so Trackmania doesn't quite offer anything new in that sense. it offers to be a pick-up-and-play controller racer arcade game but without a following for this genre of game i don't see what they could really do to garner more interest.
the game straddles a VERY niche line between two typically exclusive communities -- racing games, and platformers. if you're into racing games like Forza Horizon or Need For Speed, then *maybe* this appeals to you just a little bit (unless it's the customization that you like about the other two titles), but if you're into games like Assetto Corsa and iRacing then this game looks to you how Fortnite looks to CSGO players.
i honestly believe that if you approach this game with the anticipation of a wildly-inventive "platformer" then you're going to be very pleased with your experience because it does kind-of play like a fast-paced 3PP platformer, but the people who play Spelunky or The Binding of Isaac aren't going to look at this game and see something they would enjoy, because to them it just looks like another (albeit kookier-than-average) racing game.
"I write about some racing games that are getting me through a mental health crisis"
I hit like before watching the rest of the video. Racing games are comfort food for the soul.
P. S. I did watch the entire video, loved it. You've earned a sub :)
This has been my favourite racing game/series since I discovered it about 10 years ago.
Omg I used to play track mainia EVERY DAY when I was like 7