With my playtime, it's safe to say that Trackmania has its hooks into me. I recommend it, but not without caveats. Forgive my yapping I am just passionate about this game.
[h2]The Good:[/h2]
[b]Driving - [/b] As is most important for a racing game, Nadeo successfully made a car that is fun and interesting to drive. The depth in moment-to-moment gameplay stems from interactions between the surface (road, dirt, ice, etc) and effects (turbo, reactor, etc) combined with the driving physics. The stadium car is snappy and responsive, with lots of mechanics that provide depth despite the simple controls. A beginner is capable of getting the car to the finish line, but an expert can make it dance its way there with grace and precision. It feels rewarding to drive well. Another great thing, especially for an arcade racer, is that all input devices are on a (mostly) level playing field. There are top players on keyboard, controller, and wheel- the only limiting factor is the driver. In Nadeo's infinite wisdom, they also made three abominations consisting of the snow car, rally car, and desert car, which have none of the characteristics I've described above. But with the reduced focus on these cars in new campaigns, I find them alright for some one-off fun.
[b]Skill - [/b] As the game is completely deterministic (no RNG) and has no player collision, there is a heavy emphasis on individual improvement. This is the part of the game that I find so compelling and keeps bringing me back. Really pushing to get a time just at the echelon of my skill level gives very intense feelings when I finally achieve the goal, and improves my driving skill for the next goal. Each track has progressively harder medals (bronze, silver, gold, and author), so players of any skill level can get the same feeling. Although, you can be as competitive or as casual as you feel in the moment. Want to lock in and LAY DOWN TIMES?? The game is made for that. Built-in leaderboards and a robust replay system allow easy comparison. Restarting takes 1 button press and 1.25 seconds. Or you could drive on a map made to look at cute frogs yay :) If you feel like it, do both in the same session.
[b]Community - [/b] The Trackmania community is basically Atlas supporting the Earth. With over 300,000 community-made maps, I guarantee you will find some style you like to drive, and a section of the community that also likes that style. The skill of some mappers really blows me away, and I was astonished how much thought can go into track design. My few attempts at mapping were humbling. There's also a ton of user-made plugins (God bless ManiaPlanet) to create games-within-the-game, like Bingo or random map challenge. Basically infinite content (if you pay the subscription).
[h2]The Bad:[/h2]
[b]Learning Curve - [/b] Despite the depth in driving dynamics, the game does a poor job of explaining that they exist at all. Key concepts like drifting are essentially left to the player to discover. Unintuitive surfaces like ice and bobsleigh cause immense frustration when starting out. For a new player, "gears" are a thing that make them randomly lose half a second for no reason when they turn on dirt. Oh what's that? You didn't see the tiny lights on the back of the car that indicate what gear you're in? Tough. Without the content creators on Youtube initially introducing me to this game (shoutout Wirtual my favorite racist), I would have bounced off. I'm sure many did.
[b]Driving UI - [/b] This leads me to the frustratingly minimal UI when diving. Putting the speedo on the back of the car is nonsense. Honestly I would not play this game without the plugin that shows speed and gear in the bottom-right. And there are so many other UI-related items from plugins that are helpful; speed splits, no-respawn timer, dashboard for inputs, and ghosts++ to name a few.
[b]Menu UI - [/b] And when I'm in the menus, yep more UI complaints. Of the aforementioned 300,000 maps, how many do you think are accessible in-game? Between official campaigns, shorts, and track of the days, maybe 3,000. Add servers and clubs (player-made groups) and sure that's a lot more to see, but I hope you know what you're looking for because otherwise you're scrolling through an endless list. It is insane there's no official track search and filters in-game. You need to go to a community website or use plugins. Also there are a few WTF placements of things in the menus that make no sense, and could easily be overlooked by a player who wasn't tipped off about their existence.
[h2]The Ugly:[/h2]
[b]Subscription - [/b] Obviously, the subscription model is not ideal. Players get about 30 minutes into the "free" game before hitting a paywall. I'm really not sure what system I would use instead, but I hate subscriptions in all things. I think Nadeo are right in that I would not have paid a $60 single fee. Despite my playtime now, that would be too big of an ask just to access the game initially. Their last free game (TMNF) basically bankrupted the company and led to Ubisoft purchasing them, so this system is the solution. It could be worse- There are no microtransactions, no other purchases. Skins are free, you can set your horn to ANY .mp3 file (this is insane btw), and anyone can make a club. And if you pay for the subscription once, you get access to all past campaigns and track-of-the-days even when it expires, which has grown to be a massive backlog after 6 years.
[b]Ubisoft - [/b] The final complaint is obviously Ubisoft. Ubisoft Connect is required when playing through Steam (at least for now, we'll see if that gets updated in the future). I find it to be a bad piece of software that can be ignored 99% of the time, but boy that 1% gets on my nerves sometimes.
