Impressions: Trackmania Wii

I went and bought Trackmania Wii last week or so. That makes it the third Trackmania game I've bought - Trackmania Sunrise and Trackmania United also adorn my shelves. Too bad at least the latter one doesn't work on my current computer for some reason.

In brief, Trackmania is a racing game with no car-to-car collisions. There's the time attack mode (the main beef in the game, I think), where you compete against three shadows to win medals. There's the puzzle mode, in which you build the missing parts of the track (I've never tried this mode). Finally, there's the platform mode, in which you need to reach the goal with minimum number of restarts. If you want to learn more of Trackmania overall, see professional reviews by other people.

So, how does Trackmania Wii compare to Trackmania United? I'd call Trackmania Wii Trackmania Lite. It lacks one environment (Bay, leaving six more environments in the game) and it also lacks two of the three block schemes (daybreak/night) for each environment. So it's always daytime in the game, or so it would seem at this point. There are different sky textures, but I think that's about the extent of it.

There isn't much different music to go around. I got quickly tired of the repeating background music.

The backcover of the game case says there are over 200 tracks with the game. Of course, you'd do well to remember that the first half of tracks take roughly 20 seconds to one minute to clear if you do them right. I do not like the naming convention for the tracks. "StadiumB2" is supposed to stand for the second "Stadium"-environment track on the second difficulty level. I think Trackmania Sunrise had actual names for the tracks, not these automatically-generated labels that kill so much of the personality of the game.

I haven't been able to test the online capabilities of the game. The game comes with a track editor, which has, I figure, been a major selling point for the game. However, I hear the track sharing aspect in Trackmania Wii is nowhere as good as in other versions. I don't remember why; please check other reviews of the game.

Thankfully, you can use the D-pad on the Wiimote to control the car. Apparently also Classic Controller is supported, which should make the game easier with accurate analog controls. Turning the Wii Wheel is not, in my opinion, sufficiently accurate for this type of game where one slightly misaligned jump will make you restart the race. And of course, there's a button to do just that with no extra promptings "Are you sure?"

The graphics look OK to me. They are (at least essentially) the same environments and blocks as on Trackmania United, although I'm not certain if all the blocks are still in.

On one hand, I'm happy that I can play the game again. On the other, I wonder why the game has been cut down from the Trackmania United / Trackmania United Forever versions on PC.