Review: Trackmania Turbo

I’m sitting in my race car, waiting for the event to begin. Above me, the sound of helicopter blades slicing into the still air. Beneath me, a curved ramp leading into the track ahead. Oh, and did I mention that said helicopter is actually suspending me 100 metres above said ramp? “Three, two, one” is counted down in a foreign language, and then the word, “GO!” appears in a retro-esque font reminiscent of Daytona USA. The cable holding onto the roof of my car is released and I begin my free-fall to the ramp below and the course that is to follow.

I won’t lie: it’s perhaps the most interesting beginning to a race that I’ve ever experienced.

If sugar, spice, everything nice and some element-X were what was needed to create the Powerpuff Girls, then Need For Speed, Trials Fusion and Mario Kart 8 are the key ingredients that I’d say have gone in to create Trackmania Turbo. Simply put, this game takes the drift-happy physics of NFS, the short-yet-mostly satisfying morsels and medal system of Trials and the loopy tracks of Mario Kart and puts them all together into an accessible yet somewhat challenging racer. It looks like a kid’s game, but it will test your patience like little else.

The purpose of Trackmania Turbo is fairly simple. You’re dropped into a vehicle and you’ve got to make it from the start line to the finish, your standard racing fare. You’re never on a countdown, but you’re constantly aiming for a particular time to unlock medals – bronze, silver and gold. Unlocking medals allows you to unlock more events. More events allows you to unlock more medals and in-turn, access to further events, and from here you progress through the four championships spread across four different locations. Like I said above, very reminiscent of the tried-and-true Trials formula.

In campaign mode you have the option of tackling the often sub-minute-long tracks alone, or you can choose to race against a ghost. The ghost is based off the time you need to win the different medals, and as you complete the course, you’re fastest time also shows as a ghost for comparisons. Off the mark it’s a really neat feature that lets you see where you need to improve in order to unlock that next medal, and at the same time it can make the racing seem less ‘lonely’ as you work through the 190 events on offer.

Gameplay-wise, Trackmania Turbo is as simple as they come. You’ve got your accelerator and brake, a look-back feature, the option to switch between chase and bumper views and then a restart event or checkpoint option. It’s this simplicity that makes Trackmania Turbo a very much pick-up-and-play title and an addictive one at that, but at the same time, quite infuriating too. You wouldn’t think that holding the throttle down and powersliding around corners would prove difficult, but as you unlock more events and progress through the campaign you’ll need think about entry speeds and points, clearing obstacles, nailing momentum and just staying on course.

Each of the four main locations in the game also have their own unique car, so the challenge comes from getting used to not just the terrains, as you switch from tarmac to dessert to beaches and looping metallic arches, but the characteristics of the cars themselves. While one might be drift-happy while the other will be planted to the road. In-between you’ve then got lesser examples of both, one that’s hard to control because it’s so loose and the other just too fast on those sweeping tight tracks.

It’s interesting how it’s the simplest of games often prove the most annoying. How I’m able to play through an entire title like Forza Motorsport 6 and not rage quit, but within my first few hours of Trackmania Turbo I’m contemplating whether it’s worth throwing my controller in frustration after I’ve failed to clear a course on my 20th restart. It’s not the kind of game where you’re struggling to understand how to do it, but more so you’re struggling to understand how you can’t just get the car to go in the direction you want despite it being so obvious. I guess in these instances you shouldn’t hate the game, but the player.

What I do love about it though is how inviting it is. Courses are vibrant and simplistic in their design, and welcoming at the same time. The devil isn’t in the detail but more so in the humour, whether it’s cartoon blimps floating in the skies, massive babushka-like dolls leaning on the edges of the course or even those Chinese cats with its paw held up as an obstacle. With sometimes real but often made-up and humorous “Pro Tips” on each of the loading screens, it’s a game that doesn’t take itself seriously in the slightest, and while it comes across as a gimmick at times, I do kind of like it as well.

Moving on, while I recognise that it’s a simple pick-up-and-play game, there are some slight oversights that I can’t help but feel dampen the enjoyment. For as simple as the button configuration is, it is laid out so that the course restart is mapped to ‘B’, and the brake is mapped to ‘A’. Why it couldn’t be allocated to ‘X’ or ‘Y’ instead is beyond me, and I can’t count the amount of times I accidentally restarted the course rather than braking for a corner, coincidentally, more often in those times where I had failed a track over and over again and patience was starting to wear thing. What’s more, is that each time you restart a course you need to sit through the three-second countdown. It sounds short enough, but when you’ve made a mistake, want to restart and just get back into it again, having to wait three seconds over and over does become tiresome. Finally, while it’s worth noting that restarts occur instantly, load times are significant between events, and when each race takes around a minute to complete, it’s almost as if a good portion of your time is spent waiting as you switch between them.

Perhaps one of the most surprising features of this game came when I was asked to select my location when I first started, and unlike most titles that offer perhaps 20 or so popular countries, it honestly seems like Trackmania Turbo has included them all. I say this because for the first time in any game I’ve played, I was able to pick Macedonia as a country (and guess what, I did).

Overall, much like its motorbike equivalent, Trials, Trackmania Turbo is a fun pick-up-and-play title that’s good for a party game or just something to play when you’re looking to unwind. It’s simple, quirky and enjoyable, but certainly not without its challenges. If Trials is the kind of game you like, then this one will be right down your lane too.

Trackmania Turbo was reviewed using a promotional code on Xbox One, as provided by the publisher.

Review: Trackmania Turbo

The good Fun and colourful environments. Accessible yet satisfying gameplay. Great energetic soundtrack.	The bad Presentation is cheesy. Load times are long given the short tracks.

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