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TrackMania Wii and DS development planned for North American release this spring
Though customizable racetrack enthusiasts living in Europe and Australia have had their lucky, lucky hands on Firebrand Games' TrackMania Wii and its DS counterpart, TrackMania Turbo, for months now, North Americans have had to go without. Don't they know that we love ridiculous, physics-defying vehicular labrynths as much as (if not more than) our overseas cohorts? Fortunately, publisher City Interactive feels our pain: According to the company's latest financial statements, the two titles are coming stateside this spring. The new publisher also comes with a new name: Both versions of the game are now titled TrackMania: Build to Race, and will retail for $29.99. Keep an eye out for the Wii version March 22 and the DS version April 12. Unless, of course, you don't like possessing the godlike ability to craft racetracks from the luminiferous aether.
Introducing Trackmania Wii's track editor
If you haven't played a TrackMania game before, let us encapsulate the experience for you: you build the craziest, most impractical, most car-destroying track you can imagine, and then you race it. That's TrackMania's whole deal. Now, developer Firebrand Games is bringing that experience to the Wii with TrackMania Wii, allowing you to assemble your ridiculous courses with the Wiimote's pointer interface. It'll make it really simple to design something on which driving is impossible! The trailer above introduces the track editor interface. Trackmania Wii is officially set for a September release in Europe. While nothing has been announced for North America, Amazon currently has a May 26 release listed, via publisher Dreamcatcher.
First images of TrackMania Wii crash onto the internet
We've still got quite a wait ahead of us before TrackMania 2 arrives, but we can at very least sate our desire for more from the series in these first screens of TrackMania Wii. The game is said to feature the usual superabundance of tracks, and even an online mode for those of you looking to take the madness worldwide. TMW's first six screens (minus the logo you see above, of course) show off the variety of environments through which we'll be speeding when the game arrives on Wii in the "second quarter of 2010." We're quite fond of this one right here, but we're still holding out for the totally necessary "inside of a volcano" level. We can dream, no? %Gallery-83794%
TrackMania DS dated for North America, published by ... Atlus?
Lucky old Europe got TrackMania DS last week, but North America will have to wait for its version, which has just been announced for March 17th. As if North America waiting four months longer than Europe for a game wasn't already bizarre enough, you should hear who's publishing it: Atlus. Yeah, the same Atlus that is far more closely associated with dungeon crawlers and RPGs.Whoever wants to localize it, we'll be welcoming the twisty brilliance of TrackMania DS with a great big hug. Not only does it contain over 100 tracks and an insanely great track editor (check after the break for a video of this at work), but almost all of the early reviews are glowing. Could it be? A racing game on Nintendo's portable that actually works and isn't Mario Kart DS?%Gallery-37398%
Trackmania DS is not Touchscreenmania
It seems like a pretty bold move to make a DS racing game that doesn't use the stylus to control an onscreen steering wheel, but then it's a pretty bold move to make a DS version of a PC racing game. According to Trackmania DS producer Dan Fletcher, the team felt that touch controls "do not fit" for driving.That's not to say that the stylus has no place in Trackmania. The one aspect of the game that is perfect for touch control -- the editor -- uses it awesomely. In addition to the basic stylus control used to place tracks, Trackmania DS also features a "free draw" mode that lets players draw tracks directly!
First Trackmania DS screen is appropriately Trackmanic
4 Color Rebellion has just posted the first official screenshot of Trackmania DS, and it seems to be in line with our expectations of Trackmania -- continuous, looping tangles of brutally insane track, as designed by people who have no business designing racing tracks (us).For a DS racing game, the graphics look pretty great. Trackmania's look has always had a surreal simplicity about it, which works well for the graphical limitations of the DS, and allows a pretty racing game to be made. And as long as we're not bound by physics or common sense in the track designs, which apparently we are not, we're pleased.
Evolution GT joins growing field of 'serious' DS racers
The DS is to play host to its own version of Evolution GT, a 2006 PlayStation 2 and PC racer which, if we're being entirely honest, none of the DS Fanboy team are actually familiar with. Hence, a quick trip to Metacritic is in order (we call this "journalism"), where the two previous versions of Evolution GT currently sit on ... 60% and 61% respectively. Bah.Anyway, for the (hopefully superior) DS edition, we'll be able to get behind the wheel of officially licensed GT cars such as the Corvette Z06, Mercedes-Benz SLK, and Audi A4 Touring Car, and subsequently bounce from barrier to barrier around courses set all over Europe. There's also a multiplayer mode for up to four players, and the game will be joining the small list of titles that use the DS's Rumble Pak.It's out on June 23rd this year, by which time it should have plenty of healthy competition.[Via press release]
