I love racing games, but at someone who doesn't like to play them online, there's a huge issue that they all have to end up grappling with: how does it stay fun when you're in the lead? Sure, you can find fun in trying to optimise the laps, but it feels hollow when you already know you're going to win. You're just driving around an empty circuit, by yourself.
TrackMania avoids this problem completely by laser-focusing on the idea of optimisation. There's no other cars - save for a ghost opponent to compare yourself against - and instead makes the tracks themselves your opponent; a time trial racer with hundreds of tracks over different gamemodes, that encourages and expects you to fully master each crazy track it has to offer. It's incredibly compelling and only makes me yearn for more games like this!
United Forever itself feels like a true perfection of the series' own formula. Not only are there a huge amount of tracks in this game, but they're pretty much all good! I only remember a single track I thought was bad (and that was only a particular part of it that sucked), which is pretty amazing considering the sheer volume. It also bundles in all the environments from the previous games, each having entirely unique identities. Not only does each one have you drive a different car, which all perform noticeably differently, but the track pieces in each environment are all unique and play into the environments' own identities - contrast the extreme high-speed Island cars with freakishly fast boosters and mile-long jumps with the satisfaction of taking a slow Coast car around a tricky set of bends and you'll realise how much variety the game has to offer.
TrackMania is a series that set out with one specific goal, and aimed to work its one core idea to absolute perfection. United Forever is where they managed to achieve their goal, and it sits as not only my all-time favourite racing game, but also one of my favourite games.
TrackMania avoids this problem completely by laser-focusing on the idea of optimisation. There's no other cars - save for a ghost opponent to compare yourself against - and instead makes the tracks themselves your opponent; a time trial racer with hundreds of tracks over different gamemodes, that encourages and expects you to fully master each crazy track it has to offer. It's incredibly compelling and only makes me yearn for more games like this!
United Forever itself feels like a true perfection of the series' own formula. Not only are there a huge amount of tracks in this game, but they're pretty much all good! I only remember a single track I thought was bad (and that was only a particular part of it that sucked), which is pretty amazing considering the sheer volume. It also bundles in all the environments from the previous games, each having entirely unique identities. Not only does each one have you drive a different car, which all perform noticeably differently, but the track pieces in each environment are all unique and play into the environments' own identities - contrast the extreme high-speed Island cars with freakishly fast boosters and mile-long jumps with the satisfaction of taking a slow Coast car around a tricky set of bends and you'll realise how much variety the game has to offer.
TrackMania is a series that set out with one specific goal, and aimed to work its one core idea to absolute perfection. United Forever is where they managed to achieve their goal, and it sits as not only my all-time favourite racing game, but also one of my favourite games.