TrackMania Nations

Download this game! TrackMania Nations.

It's totally free, and incredibly addictive and fun. It's kind of like the spiritual successor to the classic game Stunt Car Racer from the late 80s, which I spent many hours playing as a child on my friend Phillip's Atari ST.

The "just one more go" factor in this game is amazing. Every time you score a medal ( Gold, Silver, or Bronze, and the elusive and incredibly difficult "Nadeo" medal ) on any of the dozens of tracks you score points which are then tallied up against every other player in the world and also in your region, so you can see how you compare to everyone else. This is a huge incentive to give a difficult track another try, because obviously someone else in the world has managed to get that Gold medal.

The game comes with a track editor, so you can create your own totally over the top gravity defying courses, and you can also edit the appearance of your car! The graphics are fantastic, and can easily be scaled up or down depending on your system. On my reasonably high end rig with all the bells and whistles turned on they look brilliant. The music also is very catchy. The menu music is awesome, and quite often I'll just sit there for a moment and listen to it before loading up a track.

Keep in mind, this game is free! It's far and away the greatest free game you will ever play. There are hours and hours of entertainment to be had.

Yes, there is in-game advertising, but it's kept solely to the tracks themselves ( for example, a billboard advertising the movie Wanted springs to mind ). These are easily ignorable, and in fact everything is moving so fast you hardly even notice them.

To reiterate, DOWNLOAD THIS GAME!

Final E3 Thoughts...

Knights Of The Old Republic MMORPG....'nuff said.

E3

Ahhh, E3. Despite its fall from grace in the eyes of a lot of critics last year when it got re-booted and became invitation only, it's still one of most important gaming conventions in the world. This year's E3 is on at the moment, and here are some of my favourite picks from what I've read and seen on the net...

- Mirror's Edge

This game excites me. There are a couple of things that kind of bother me, like maybe the red objects making things a bit too easy, but overall what I've seen so far looks kickass. I'm probably looking forward to this game more than any other.

- Resident Evil 5

Dodgy dialogue? Check. Monsters? Check. Natural evolution from the new gameplay style of Resident Evil 4? Check. This one should be a terrifying blast. Also, online Co-op should be fun.

- Fallout 3

Hmmm, I'm a bit divided over this one. Bethesda Softworks has always seemed like an amazing "ideas" developer, but their execution often feels a bit clunky. I kind of get the feeling from watching this, admittedly awesome, trailer that the problems of Oblivion might not have been ironed out. In particular, the stilted animation of the human characters is a glaring eyesore. Still, if even half of their ideas are executed well then it should still be an amazing game.

- Rage

This trailer brings out the graphics-whore in me. It looks like Carmack and the team at id are going to once again raise the graphics bar, and take back their crown from those pesky Germans at Crytek. Oh, and hopefully the gameplay will stand up alongside those graphics......mmmmm, shiny graphics.

Note that none of the above are new announcements at E3, which is kind of sad. There haven't really been any surprise announcements so far. Still, the remainder of 2008 and early 2009 looks like a good time for gaming.