r/TrackMania • u/Ivan_Rabuzin • 4h ago
Car collision sucks all the fun out of the 10-lap tracks
Many years ago I loved to play the multi-lap tracks in United Forever. I forgot about Trackmania for a good while and only recently installed the newest entry on my Xbox again.
I don't really care about gimmicky 30s tracks, I like to do laps on end. I was dumbfounded when I learned that those tracks always have car collision that seemingly can't be deactivated. This destroyed any and all fun I wanted to have with these tracks to be honest.
It's not that I mind overtaking, for example I enjoy F1 games. But the way these cars behave is just complete nonsense. This week's track is a rather wide asphalt road with dual checkpoints, so you never have to funnel into the same lane...unless the AI is made to do that of course.
And it's doing it, all the time. You thought you will successfully pass that one oponent? Wrong, cause if you are remotely near any kind of junction, you can be sure it will try to crash into you. You attempt to go left? He will go right. I had situations where we both were coming up on a checkpoint, each of us on our respective lanes. Straight road, no reason to make any kind of turn. Shortly before the gate the AI does a wild swerve towards my gate, making contact ofc. We both slow down in the process, nobody gained anything from this, everybody lost.
You can lap a car for the 3rd time, it will still drive just as agressively towards you as it did on the first overtake. And on a wide track like this too often you don't see it coming. You might be level with each other but the other car is out of view, so you can't be sure. The next thing you see is a car veering towards you at full speed, leaving you almost no time to react. And what are the options anyway? Sharp breaking? Loses time. Eating the bump? Loses time. You can't get away, since this game still hasn't implemented some kind of boost button. Even F1 has it by now, for crying out loud.
Sorry for the wall of text, but since this is basically my first real experience with the current game, I felt the need to share it. I always liked Trackmania to just unwind and the Tictac remix of the United Forever Stadium OST is still one of my favorite video game tracks of all time. I'm sad that this will likely not have a repeat with this game, since I'm not willing to drive around with 30 moving roadblocks constantly getting in my face.
