It is indeed the first time that the series of Nadeo puts its wheels on the consoles of Sony and Microsoft. However, this new component is also released on PC, so as not to offend anyone. And that's good, because Trackmania Turbo is much more complete than some past episodes, which sometimes offered us only one environment, for example. Here, we are immediately entitled to four environments, three of them being already known to regulars of the series, the fourth being completely new. As its name suggests, Canyon Grand Drift offers a setting made of desert canyons. The tracks concocted by Nadeo for this environment favor in particular the jump ramps, which lead our vehicle to stay in the air for a long time. In Down & Dirty Valley, it is the greenery that predominates, as well as the off-piste passages, which require knowing how to maneuver in the earth or puddles of water. Rollercoaster Lagoon, the new environment, offers us a tropical setting, made of turquoise sea and exotic palm trees. There are also loops worthy of the most vertiginous roller coasters, which regularly put us upside down. Finally, the gigantic and futuristic International Stadium multiplies the shiny tracks like a mirror, on which glides at full speed the Formula 1 type vehicle.
Because, yes, each environment is dedicated to a particular type of car. This is not the only specificity of Trackmania compared to classic racing games, since in addition to assuming a totally arcade gameplay, the game even allows itself not to manage collisions between vehicles. This not only allows 100 players to be able to participate in the same online race, but the interest of this voluntary gap also lies in the obligation to only blame oneself in the event of failure, and in the possibility of restarting each race in peace, until having memorized every detail of the track. To improve your time, you have to know how to slow down at the right times, skid in certain turns, accelerate in others, avoid certain obstacles, choose one path rather than another, anticipate the passages where the track will force the stop of our engine for a few moments, braking in the middle of a jump so as not to end up in a wall, and many other things.
TURBO SPICY SAUCE
In order to gently teach us all these subtleties, the game offers us a single-player mode made up of 200 circuits divided into five categories, which can only be unlocked if you have won enough bronze, silver or gold medals. gold in the previous circuits. The intention is laudable and the pedagogy works perfectly on the White, Green, Blue and Red series. On the other hand, some players may never see the later tracks in the Black category, as they basically require having earned a gold medal on all previous tracks. Not easy! But after all, it's one of the specificities of Trackmania to marry extreme accessibility and real requirement in the long run. Moreover, the circuit editor works somewhat on the same principle. If you can quickly create your first tracks with the beginner mode, you have to go through the advanced mode and its relative complexity before you can create levels capable of competing with those provided by default. For the most lazy, a level generator is still available. We just choose the environment, the atmosphere (dawn, day, dusk) and the length of the track. Then, the program takes care of creating a new random circuit. Handy for putting everyone on an equal footing during a challenge with friends. Moreover, in addition to the online mode which is clearly the big chunk of the game, Trackmania Turbo also emphasizes local play. We can just as easily play each turn in the Hot Seat at sixteen, as take advantage of the split screen at four. Modes taking more or less the concepts of Micro Machines or Mario Kart are even appearing. In the first case, everyone is playing on the same screen, and leaving the camera field is then equivalent to leaving the track.
In the second, some bonuses are available to brighten up the games, and you can therefore from time to time have a giant or tiny car (which changes the way you approach certain passages), or even the possibility of shoot. If these new modes are obviously welcome, the concepts are however not pushed far enough to generate excessive enthusiasm. We can also notice that these modes are hidden in a corner of the menus, which proves that the heart of the game still lies in the classic races. Moreover, the new "Double Driver" mode is also more of a nice but dispensable gadget than a gameplay revolution. Controlling a single vehicle with two players certainly requires good communication so that the partners turn in roughly the same direction at the same time, but in the long run it generates at least as much frustration as it does fun. In the end, it is therefore once again online that we have the most fun, trying to beat the times of other players in order to progress in the various regional or world rankings. Small precision in passing, the Internet connection is not mandatory and the game therefore easily accepts to launch in offline mode. Nowadays this is not necessarily self-evident, and it is therefore also to the credit of this very nice Trackmania Turbo.
