Trackmania Turbo-Nla

UPDATE: It came in the mail today! Hype!Very fun arcade racer, brings back nostalgia of racers like they used to be. It has the arcade feel mixed with the speed of F-Zero. It brings back the arcade feel with the crew voices and even the music. Fantastic graphics and music. 200+ tracks and track creator! PS4 needed a fun racer and we finally got it. And it's not $60! I rarely give 5/5's to games, but this is one of the most fun racers I've played in years and I think this will be a sleeper hit for the racing genre. For $40, you're getting a decent racer which this gen hasn't seen yet. I ordered from Amazon Prime and got the game cheaper so it's really a deal. If you want an arcade racer and you like going fast, you've got your fix. Did I mention 60fps 4-player splitscreen and remote play?How races work: It's not your typical racer. When playing online, up to 100 people can join a room. In this room, the host has set a playlist of maps and modes. Ex: Race - Normal. In this setting, people are placed on the course and are all racing at the same time for the fastest lap time, not who gets to the finish line first. It's like online multiplayer time trial where every corner drift in milliseconds counts. I just won by first race online by 9 milliseconds and my 2nd race by 10 millseconds! It really gets intense during the last minute. Players cannot hit each other, they drive right through each other which is nice, and you have a set time limit set by the host to have as many tries as you can at making that lap time speeding down the course at 400mph. Hit the rail the wrong way and you'll go flying off the course and will have to restart your lap, or not. You can drive outside the course if you want to and explore. It's intense, it's competitive and it's rewarding. A very refreshing take on the racing genre.

This game is absolutely addicting. I have over 20 games for the PS4, and this is one I can sit through for hours in a hypnotic state trying to best the gold medal time. There are many games out nowadays that you have to force yourself through the first hour or two before the action really gets its hooks dug in. Not this one. Just to be clear this is pure arcade action the second you get to gameplay. With that said the replay-ability is better than any other racing game IMO. None of the tracks or campaign sections feel like a grind. I have purchased many many games from Amazon, but this is the first one that I felt the need to leave a positive review about. The trend lately is for big studios to release bare bone skeleton games the first day, and proceed with patches and DLC to finish them out. And they are charging 60 dollars for them. This game truly feels worth the 60 dollar for the addicting gameplay alone. Just a little tip to help out first time players. Your gonna want to go the old school digital route on the controller. Use the D-pad and control your throttle and braking with the buttons. Stay away from the analog thumbsticks and analog triggers for control. The timing is so important in this game that any small deadzone in the controls will make or break the difference between a gold metal and a bronze. It feels archaic using the old pad controls, but trust me.

Almost every racing game today is either a simulator or a street racing game of some sort. Trackmania Turbo is a game that aims to bring back the feeling of playing at an arcade, which it manages to achieve with great success.To best way to describe this game would be to think of it as a Hot Wheels game, specifically the 2004 game “Stunt Track Challenge”. You are given insane tracks to drive in to try to achieve the best time.With that said here lies my biggest issue with the game and why I didn’t give this game a 5 star rating. No COM players (as of this writing) in the single player and multiplayer modes. This makes the single player campaign feel like an endless series of time attacks. Hopefully the game developers (Nadeo) hear the outcry and implement them later on.Other than that issue, the game is very good.While Trackmania Turbo is no Gran Turismo, anybody who has played the previous installments will tell you that the game is not easy if you want to be good at it. Like Gran Tursimo you will find yourself memorizing courses trying to find the best racing line.Since the game offers no vehicle customization, it is all skill here, which I am a big fan of.One thing that I really like about this game is the atmosphere, if you played Gran Turismo you know how boring some of the track environments can be stale. Trackmania Turbo’s tracks are full of blimps, helicopters, and bright signs that all add up to the experience one gets when playing at an arcade. Add a good soundtrack on top of that, and you have a great experience while playing this game.The best thing about this game of course is the split-screen multiplayer and track builder. This game is proof that nothing beats playing locally with friends and family as you try to beat each other. We now live in a time where 40 inch TVs are affordable, so I think it’s time split-screen makes a comeback. I love how Nadeo really pushed for the local multiplayer, and it is for this reason that I think the console version is better than the PC version.One more thing, there is no collisions on multiplayer, so that players don't have to fight for the same racing line. This is evident that Nadeo put thought into this feature. Though there are three things that bother me about the multiplayer. One is that each player has to select ready before the race starts, I find this redundant since the controllers are already connected. Second is that if a player completes a course, or hits the reset button, the round ends. I think that all players should be allowed to complete the course. Lastly, in order to select a different you have to exit back to the selection menu, where as in single player you have the choice to move on to the next track after you are done with the first track.Also this is more of a problem with the system its self, but whenever you connect an additional controller for some reason the system wants you to sign in as a user. Have we gotten to the point where video game consoles are so advanced that thy can't simply connect another controller?I like that you can set the Track Builder to create a track for you. Also there is a workshop so that players can share their custom tracks with the world.All in all Trackmania Turbo is a great game, and I hope that this game gets popular enough so that Nadeo can put out future updates to make the game even better.Lastly this is the first time that I have pre-orded a game from Amazon and the service was great.Update:After playing this game for awhile it proves my assertion that this game is best played with other people (split-screen). Single player is great if you want a quick fix, but trying to play more than 30 minutes starts to wear on you, again this due to their being no CPU players. Again this game hasn't even been out for a week so I hope in the coming months their well be some updates to help fix some the games downfalls, then I can give this game 5 stars.I just checked the game on Steam and as I expected the game received many bad marks, so this is one of those rare times where the console version beats out the PC version.Lastly Amazon gave me a .$09 credit due to some price drop. This made me laugh when I read the email so I thought I share it.