TrackMania United Forever

There was doubt as to whether we should review TrackMania United Forever, but its naming is so alienating to anyone who's only ever had a passing interest in the gallic speed racer that a spot of review-based definition is required.

If you have TrackMania United, and so subscribe to the mind-bending thrills of cursor-based track laying, rampleaping and ghost car hurtling on offer in its solo and multiplayer races, then you don't need to buy TrackMania United Forever. This is a free update - in fact if you bought United through Steam it will have Forever-ified itself already. This is a brilliant deal and one that developers Nadeo should ceaselessly be praised for.

If you're not on board yet, or restrict yourself to the free TrackMania Nations. (also recently Forever-ified), then TrackMania United Forever is a nifty buy from Steam or your local game emporium. This is the solid puzzling, platform-leaping and challenge-taking backbone to the seamless TrackMania online experience. And it also has a few extra tracks, a couple of graphical updates and a 3D mode - the latter of which is brilliant, if a little wooziness-inducing. The feelings of compulsion as you repeatedly slam the backspace key to better your times have only recently been rivalled by Trials 2: Second Edition (issue 195), while the way the game wraps community downloads into its interface remains impressive. My TrackMania love remains undimmed, even if I am routinely informed that I'm only the 250th best player in London.

But for a new player, what's the point in paying full whack for the game when you could just fish a copy of TrackMania United out of a bargain bin or from an online retailer and then update it for free? Come to that isn't it cheeky for publishers Focus to hike the price back up for Forever when the new content contained within is available for nowt? And doesn't the fact that I've had to go to such pains to explain exactly what the damn game is, and in all likelihood entirely failed in the attempt, suggest that outside of the TrackMania cognoscenti this is a bit of a marketing and communications cock up?

TrackMania, I love you, but there's a reason most games stick with pumping out sequels and year-tagged updates. Next time, stop this shit and just give us TrackMania II. (For free, maybe.)