An awesome game brought down only by crushing difficulty and inconsistent track design.
Trackmania's main draw is it's amazingly deep track editor, with which you can make any visions you have come to life, and the puzzle mode, which involves using a set amount of pieces to build the shortest track possible from a set start to a set finish, through some set checkpoints.
Those modes are amazingly executed, but lets go through the other departments.
GRAPHICS:
On a whole, Trackmania looks nice. You'll notice some pop-up in the distant enviornments here and there, and you need a fairly strong PC to run it, but it has a nice, crisp graphical look to it, and looks quite handsome in it's own right.
SOUND:
No recognizable music here, but it's all quite upbeat and well written, and fits the game very well. Engine noises sound great, and all the sound effects in general are well done.
GAMEPLAY:
Ohhhh boy. Here we go. If a game like F-Zero GX made you frustrated, don't get this game. This game isn't necissarily as hard as F-Zero, but boy oh boy this game doesn't have hardly any difficulty curve to begin with. The very first race in the game is very challenging, and if you're new to Trackmania, will probably take a few attempts. From there on out, all missions in all modes will probably take you 4-8 attempts if you're going for silver, more than twice that if you're going for a gold.
But this game is genuinly addicting too. While it is frustrating, it feels very rewarding when you pass a race.
This is all hampered by some bad track design though, unfortunately. Some tracks are frustrating, while some tracks cross the line to simply annoying in bad design choices. Whose idea was it to place a billboard right over a jump that is proceeded by some turbo boosts? It forces you to have to brake wildly through the turbos and slowly drive over the bump, rendering the whole thing useless.
That's only a hypothetical case though, since I can't remember any specific examples - I can't take notes while I'm glued to my screen.
VALUE:
This game's value is through the roof. With the included track editor and tons of sites with custom tracks and vehicles, you could play this game for years, stopping occasionaly to download a few more tracks and cars.
So if you at all enjoy designing tracks or Arcade Racers, by all means BUY IT!