Gaming Trackmania

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I haven't seen a lot of posts about Trackmania. IMO the best racing game available for the DS, I like it a lot more than Mario Kart because of the short fun tracks and more realistic gameplay.
Are there any active players around? Anyone completed all tracks?

I have just unlocked hard for the second time (lost my saves so needed to start all over again).

 

[incognito54]

I still play it, have won gold medals in all races (including bonus) and platforms and I'm working on puzzle with 4 gold medals to go (D2, E1, E2 and E3). I also have about 12 Firebrand medals.

Overall I quite like the game, it's one of the best games to play while commuting. But the save system is a bit off, it's not clear when it saves and I lost some gold medals because of it. So now before turning off the DS, I always dance around the menus hoping that when I turn it on there's no surprises.

 

[tfb]

I still play it, have won gold medals in all races (including bonus) and platforms and I'm working on puzzle with 4 gold medals to go (D2, E1, E2 and E3). I also have about 12 Firebrand medals.

Overall I quite like the game, it's one of the best games to play while commuting. But the save system is a bit off, it's not clear when it saves and I lost some gold medals because of it. So now before turning off the DS, I always dance around the menus hoping that when I turn it on there's no surprises.

Gold in all races seems like a hell of a job. I haven't started on the puzzles yet. Did it take you a long time to achieve this?
I have 56 bronze 41 silver and 25 golden medals. To unlock extreme I need 20 extra golden medals.
I am sure I will be able to unlock extreme, but it will take a while. I am not so sure about extreme, there are some tracks that I needed to redo "a lot" to be able to obtain a bronze medal.

The best thing about trackmania is that the playing time for one track is so short. You can play one track in 1 or 2 minutes and receiving a medal is very rewarding.
It has a few bugs indeed, but it doesn't annoy me very much. My own racing annoys me a lot more

 

[incognito54]

The rally and desert races are quite easy to get gold, but the stadium ones in hard and extreme can take quite a bit of restarting. Don't know how long it took because I mainly play the game while commuting (about 20minutes) but I'm sure it was a few months.

I believe that in order to get the bonus tracks you need to have gold in all races.

By the way, does anyone know if there are any differences between (E) and (U)? I was checking and (E) was 256Mb and (U) is 512Mb and it has less languages...

 

[updowners]

I stopped playing trackmania because it was really hard to control the rally and desert cars. Also, they didn't implement a wifi thing so you could share tracks online like the original on pc.

 

[tfb]

I stopped playing trackmania because it was really hard to control the rally and desert cars. Also, they didn't implement a wifi thing so you could share tracks online like the original on pc.

Strange, I agree with incognito54 and think rally and desert are probably a bit easier than stadium. That said there are very difficult dessert and rally tracks as well that can haunt you a long time.
I sometimes does take a lot of repeats to receive gold on a track.

@incognito54 I'm also playing the 256MB (E) version. Indeed strange that the (U) version is 512 MB.. are we missing something..?

 

[tfb]

I have unlocked Extreme levels and even got a bronze medal on all of them. Hard: every level silver. Rest of the levels gold.

Total: 75 bronze, 64 silver and 50 gold.

Great game, with amazing replay value. IMO underrated by the critic reviewers, probably because they compare it with the PC version and the lack of online gaming. Personally I don't care about that, and I think you shouldn't judge a game on what it doesn't have.

Users have given it an 8.8 on gamespot.
My score for the game is 9.5
Could be a 10 if the save system didn't fail sometimes and it wasn't possible to get stuck (on some few occasions it is possible to get stuck below a track)

Will report back when I have gold on all tracks

 

[PettingZoo]

I have been meaning to play trackmaniaDS.. though I cant be bothered.