Trackmania Experiment

Let's face it, most free games are crap or they are limited demo versions of their proper selves, but TrackMania Nations (which is a free racing game available on Steam) finally has me hooked.

The hook for me is the fact that you can literally play against over 2 million registered players. It is a clever design of the game that lets you watch your world ranking slowly improve that makes you feel like you are actually achieving something worthwhile while playing this fun little game. You can also check your ranking against your own country and even your local region within that country.

But don't be tempted to play the game with the default cursor keys just because it seems like a simple game. I rather stupidly, did this thinking keys would be best. But then after a eureka moment I picked up my analogue joypad and instantly (and rather embarrassingly) gained a whole new dimension of control improving my game by much.

So I've been playing for a few weeks now and would like to think I have a little skill at it so I want to see how high I can get my ranking just by playing the game for an hour or so three or four times a week. Now it is fairly obvious that of the two million players registered, they are not all going to be currently active. Especially when you consider that the game is free, so most people will play it three times maybe and never play it again.

Therefore, it is easy to increase your ranking in the beginning. Just a couple of sessions on multiplayer will allow you to break into the top 700,000 fairly easily. But so far I have found my progress slow but fairly steady and with a little bump I shoved myself past the top 300,000.

My worldwide ranking currently stands around 290,000.

My TM username is Falin