Trackmania 2: Canyon Review

Trackmania has proved to be somewhat of a sleeper hit since the racing series was first released on the PC in 2003. In fact, the Trackmania lineage now boasts over 10 million registrations and a dedicated following within that. Trackmania²: Canyon is the most recent and grandest offering from French developer Nadeo, but is it worth consideration as a Christmas stocking filler?

Trackmania²: Canyon, or Canyon from here on, is actually only available in digital download form, so wrapping it up as a present could prove rather difficult. USB stick perhaps? Hmm. Regardless, in this modern digital age the game is relatively quick and easy to download – it’s just over 1 gig in size and the handy Ubisoft download manager allows pausing and resuming of the download. The look and feel of Canyon will be very familiar for returning Trackmania folk, but new players with a basic sense of direction can get up to speed relatively easily. Boot up the game and there are essentially three main ways to get stuck in and play: race solo, online or dabble with the editors.

The solo mode features a campaign of around 65 tracks which become progressively harder in difficulty. This simple statement shouldn’t be underestimated however as Trackmania is no simulation racer. Unless it’s a simulation of lunacy you're after that is. The starter tracks may involve racing a fairly simplistic track from start to finish as quickly as possible, but it’s not long before the tracks involve staggeringly large jumps, loop the loops, crazy suspended bridges through caves and huge banked curves at ridiculous speeds, all of which makes finishing a track a challenge in itself. Tracks can be raced offline against four preset computer ghost cars but the real satisfaction comes by uploading an ‘official time’.

Official times are uploaded to individual track leaderboards - which can be viewed on regional, national and worldwide scales – and also earn skill points which for an overall solo leaderboard. These uploaded times can now only be set every 5 minutes, so practice and composure are essential for boasting that optimum lap. Should a lap be tarnished by a mistake, or indeed were the car to say, leave the track, then it can be instantly reset back to the last checkpoint or restarted at the start line for another go at the press of a button, with our average being 3 or 4 restarts a minute. It can become an addictive process of trial and error, though skill, luck and consistency can dictate whether the experience ultimately becomes fulfilling or just frustrating.

After a bit larking about (read: serious practicing) it’s time to take the plunge and take the race multiplayer. There are offline hot seat, split screen and local network modes, but the longevity comes with the online mode which houses a separate multiplayer ranking board. Ladder points are earned on ranked servers simply by finishing ahead of other ranked drivers. Servers come in a variety of shapes and sizes with a handful of game modes including time trial, which gives players unlimited restarts to set the fastest lap in a set time limit, and rounds, where points are scored in individual laps of a track with no restarts should car and track depart ways. There is even a stunt mode included, which is a bit like the Tony Hawk skateboarding games, only with cars. It should also be noted that there is never any contact between cars – they are there simply for visual pressure.

The servers aren’t booming like the fields of duty are, but at the time of writing there are at least a dozen servers with more than 10 drivers apiece, with the top two servers each boasting over 50 drivers, which is a riot as far as racing games are concerned. A big improvement to Canyon over its predecessors is ManiaLive, which ships with the game and easily allows hosts to customise their server with plugins, such as track records and music players. From there on it’s up to the player to get what they want from the game. Keep your head down and just drive race after race to gradually climb up the rankings ladder, join in with the friendly banter and make some friends to race with, or take it one step further and sign up with a team to race in competitions. The scope is truly exciting just like any good MMORPG.

The last aspect of Trackmania that we haven’t touched upon yet is the in-game editors. The map editor is the main highlight here and allows players to craft their own tracks from scratch. Each track is built from a wide variety of individual ‘blocks’. The most basic example is start and finish blocks connected by say straight and corner blocks, but add a few hours, a dash of inspiration and sprinkling of creativity and a race track can be intertwined around a ravine or perhaps even through a custom built dam. A long-awaited new addition to the Canyon map editor is the ability to copy, paste and save block combinations which can help save future repetition. Other editors include a car skinning suite and Mediatracker, a useful tool for editing replays into video masterpieces.

The most budding track designers will also be grateful for Maniascript, an in-game scripting feature to create and trigger actions which makes for the potential of more advanced track effects such as objectives, and there is also a new pack manager to make it easier to bind together custom content. To share creations Canyon includes Manialink, an in-game browser for players to create and search for other players’ custom content, and there is also Maniahome for managing in-game friends, private messaging and even forum discussions.

All this sounds well and good but, as with previous Trackmania titles, it’s never really clear how to use many of the features on offer. Finding out where, let alone how to share creations is surprisingly difficult and so it is probable that many players simply won’t bother. It is a relief to find that a link to a Trackmania wiki page has now been added to the main menu page, but this is still very much a work in progress site and currently it’s not easy to figure out how to use the advanced tools or where or how tracks can be exchanged.

Despite having publisher giant Ubisoft on its side, developer Nadeo is a relatively small studio that still seems to rely almost entirely on the community to create guides and places to share content, so a novice player will be in the dark until stumbling on something relevant on the web. Ultimately the best place for tutorials and track sharing are community run sites Mania Creative (http://tutorials.mania-creative.com/) and Mania Exchange (http://tm.mania-exchange.com/). Nadeo plan to have all its future games integrated on a network system called ‘Maniaplanet’, which should have all social, economical and creative needs covered in one place, but this isn’t functioning as of yet.

Production values in general are lacklustre at times with many of the menus, text and colours lacking a high level of polish. Fortunately in-game is where the majority of time will be spent - unless you are similar to us and just like to stare at the leaderboards – and it’s a pleasure to say the graphics engine looks and plays superb. Considering tracks are built from blocks, the world looks seamless, the textures sharp and the post processing effects are ooh shiny. We particularly like how the HDR lighting blinds drivers when they rush out of a tunnel into the splendid sunlight at high speed. The sound effects are also two fold – some sound effects seem loose and flat, while the music is suitably punchy and vibrant.

However our biggest concern with Canyon is the single environment. The likes of Forza Motorsport, Grid, Gran Turismo and even previous Trackmania titles have multiple cars and locations to keep the gameplay feeling fresh. Canyon only has the one. The environment looks gorgeous and the drift handling of the car is pleasingly fun, but it still begins to feel a little samey too soon no matter how many tracks can be made using the various blocks. Don’t get us wrong: £20 for Canyon is still decent value for a game stuffed with plenty of things to do and work towards. And we also respect Nadeo for taking their time perfecting the game engine and the Canyon environment, but the lack of variety will be enough to put some players off.

So Canyon is a good game, just not a great one, yet. Meet some like-minded people in a server online and the play time could spiral into the 100’s of hours, but get bored of the single car environment and the play time will nose dive. We still have great faith in Nadeo delivering an awesome experience when Maniaplanet finds it feet, but that is some way off and potentially depends on the uptake of Canyon. To answer the opening question then: is Canyon a worthy present for Christmas? Well Canyon has that all important potential for making people late for the Christmas turkey dinner and even the end of year celebrations. But when it comes to making a New Year’s resolution to shake off a Trackmania addiction, well it may be a lot easier achieved than in previous years.