When you think of racing games, what comes to mind? Need For Speed? Grand Turismo? Project Gotham Racing? When I think of racing, my mindset is TrackMania. This is another one of those games I think went relatively unnoticed. TrackMania: Sunrise is a revamp of the original TrackMania, which wasn't that incredible of a game. This time around the developer, Nadeo, has re-developed their racer and have improved on it ten-fold. If you're new to the TrackMania series, buckle up for an intense thrill ride. The game offers you a variety of unique tracks and time trials to try and beat, rewarding you bronze, silver, or gold medals depending on how well you perform. When you begin the game, you'll notice that most of the tracks are locked. That's a big thing with this rendition of TrackMania. In order to get most of the tracks (some which are really fun to race through), you'll have to take the time earning gold medals on all the prerequisite tracks first. It's tedious, even frustrating at times, so it's not for everyone. When it comes down to it though, it's not a game that requires much learning at all; sit down and put the pedal to the metal. (Aka: push the arrow keys) The old, "easy to learn, difficult to master" phrase applies here.

The game boasts an excellent track editor, giving you the freedom to make any type of whacky, gravity defying type of course that you want. The controls in the editor are simple and easy to use. You can navigate and create your 3D environment comfortably and fluently. They provide you with a decent selection of roads, structures/buildings, jumps, and tunnels, making it fun to play God for awhile and then seamlessly race on what you've just built. I found myself paying more attention to detail in creating plausible city areas just to find myself building a ramp to jump that city five minutes later. If you can build it, you can jump it. That's TrackMania's motto.

There are only three cars to choose from in TrackMania, but they handle well even when you're upside down going 400+ mph on some of the crazy premade tracks. One downer is that damage upon collision with side rails, trees, or anything for that matter was not implemented. Even when you're racing in the time trials, you'll find that they didn't even put any effort into detecting collisions for your opponent's cars; you just go right through them. Also, some tracks are so wildly designed that you'll have to reset you car to the last checkpoint because you'll find yourself missing a sharp turn and ending up down a mountain, or even in the ocean. Not that this is entirely a bad thing; it can be quite amusing to see where your car ends up after cruising 500 mph off a cliff.

One last feature the game includes is a puzzle mode which is fairly fun to play. Part editing, part testing, your objective is to fit in the necessary structures to get your car from start to finish. Whether it be ramp, platforms, or the various type of roads, they've come up with some tricky ways to rack your brain as to how the heck you get from point A to point B.

Even with the lack of collision detection and the laughable selection of cars, TrackMania: Sunrise is worth it. The game's graphics look pretty nice for the mere 900MB the game takes up on your hard drive. Max and I found TrackMania: Sunrise for under $20.00 at our local game store, and that was a few years ago. For hardcore racing fans, the implausible speeds and jumps may be a turn-off, however for the casual racing fanatic, this is pure win. What's more fun than jumping over a body of water, through city skyscrapers and then into an underground tunnel? Nothing. TrackMania: Sunrise gets an A in my books.