…and granted you three or five or innumerous requests, features, brought to life in our upcoming racing game - what would they be?

Are there any fundamental parts that we can not afford to miss? What do you look forward to the most? And what super-cool options do you want to find in the game?

Stuff to do with, for instance,

the cars, the tracks, the modification, the individuality, the fun-factor, the reliability, the game modes, the cooperation, the community, the creativity, the handling, the speed, the predictability, the unexpected, the network, the rules, the economics, the environments…anything. Everything.

What is most important to YOU?

// cheerful greetings from your friendly spirit 

In less than an hour I’ve received nine medals and tried out ten different tracks. So far so good. But the process of getting to the starting line was far from simple. Let me put it like this. My mum couldn’t have downloaded and installed this game. Probably not even my sister, who’s not an entirely idiotic person when it comes to sort-of-techy stuff. Then again, maybe my family isn’t exactly the TrackMania prime target group?

Ok, so using STEAM is not the end of the world. But it’s not common knowledge either. And ok, there was probably another, much easier way, to get hold of TrackMania then the STEAm one… but if so, it’s very well hidden.

It’s not just about the actual gaming experience, the race itself. It’s also about the accessibility.

Still, they’ve definetely done a few things right.

• the tracks are rather short - this in combination with smooth restart/respawn functionality gives you the strength to actually bother trying to improve again and again without wanting to strangle yourself out of boredom
• instant replays after every race (not so funny every time, but they’re easy to escape. litterally.)
• extremely easy-to-grasp-and-use controls
• easy-to-understand menu system
• instant feedback/ratification - “New Personal Record” in a popup window after pretty much each race (this could also, on the contrary, be very annoying for a non newbie who is confident in him/herself)
• very quick loading of tracks

On the downside of things…

• graphics are “dead” - no real feeling in the environment
• extremely complicated, non intuitive, download and installation process
• no obvious social context or community activity next to the game  (ok, so I played single player races… but still - the game didn’t shout “social activites” or “forum” at me…no sir…)

And after I’ve played this game for more than like… 40 minutes I’m sure I will have much more to say about the depth, the gameplay, the physics, the controls, the game modes, the fps rates, the track designs, the cars, the community functionality etc etc etc forever and ever. Is it realistic enough? Challenging enough? Is it good looking enough? Does it provide me with enough variety? You know, all these things that put together decides if this is game for you, or not.

Will play some more tomorrow. Time to hop out of the office.

// L

Oh yes, I almost forgot. There’s been some serious updates on the car physics and with these latest changes it feels better than ever. I might have said that before but it’s true! (It’s just like those washing powder ads - the clothes actually get a little bit whiter and brighter every time…)

The quality and feel of the game so far speaks for itself - it’s gonna be an online smash hit. It’s good looking, the controls are tuned to perfection and the game modes makes competition fun fun fun… Programmed for success!

// Miss Wallin