the racetrack the place where the rubber

hits the road blistering speeds tight

turns the thrill of adrenaline where a

few hundreds of a second is the

difference between Sweet Victory and

bitter defeat I pull up to the starting

line and hit the throttle again and

again and again because in this race

there are no other cars to Edge out in

the final stretch in this race I'm going

toe to- Toe with my greatest enemy

me welcome to random game reviews I put

every game in the PlayStation Store into

a spreadsheet and let my AI chatbot pal

Woodle bot who I use as a glorified

random number generator tell me which

game I will play and review for this

episode I asked my supporters on patreon

what games they wanted to see me review

and chose randomly from that list which

is why I'll be

reviewing track

[Music]

Mania track Mania is a free-to-play

racing game that focuses on the nerdiest

kind of racing there is the time trial

in time trial racing it's you against

the clock making small gradual

improvements to gain a better rank on

the leaderboard there's a world ranking

but it would probably feel pretty bad to

turn into good result only to find out

that you came in

347,000 in your area since I'm from

British Columbia Canada they gave me

this Nifty Canada racer and my trusty

Canada mobile which can drive 20 km per

liter of maple syrup in the gas tank

track Mania competitions are broken into

Seasons which are made up of 25 races

each individual race will award medals

based on hitting specific time

thresholds these medals are bronze

silver gold and the author medal which

you receive when you beat the best time

of the person who made the level the

medals matter because you need so many

of them to progress further in the

season within each season there's a

decent variety of levels some are pretty

straightforward others are technically

challenging some lean heavily on a

gimmick and some just send you flying

down an icy slope like a crazy rocket

powered bob sled hurdling towards

certain death one of the first things

you'll notice about this game is that

it's incredibly haunted you race against

the ghosts of past Racers so that you

have a visual representation to compete

against and once you've completed a

track once wait who's this

you think you're better than me I

immediately lose interest in every other

ghost on the track and I'm focused

solely on defeating the self-satisfied

douchebag that is me from one minute ago

but I quickly run into a speed bump

because I'm unable to replicate how I

handled the first two turns on my

earlier run and leave myself in my own

dust failure dust over and over I watch

my personal best pull out ahead of me

and wonder how I'm supposed to live up

to the man I used to be earlier today in

terms of controls this game is fairly

simple because it basically just comes

down to gas break and restart but I

found that I didn't want to hit break

when I could avoid it because it slowed

me down too much opting instead to just

lay off the gas for a microsc before

hitting it again to make my corner so

then it's really just gas and restart

and you'll hit restart a lot because

it's real easy to go flying off the

track when you reach the game's

absolutely ludicrous speeds which you

can see traed on the back of your car

you are going to crash like a lot of

times and while the controls are simple

there are definitely intricacies in

navigating the tracks that aren't

immediately apparent making track Mania

difficult to master the races themselves

are fairly short which is good because I

can tell you from experience that

getting to the end of one of the longer

tracks and screwing up right before the

end feels real bad I can feel candada

Racers shame these races are meant to be

fast tense and kind of floaty to give

you the sense that you're constantly on

the precipice of disaster with one wrong

move because you are in my quest to

defeat myself I finally figure out the

first section that I just can't catch up

to myself finishing the race 6 seconds

behind two and a half seconds behind two

seconds one and a half seconds 8 seconds

I'm clearly improving but how did I do

this last time I just keep failing over

and over and over in going up against my

personal best I'm feeling my personal

worst but this encapsulates the

experience of track Mania not the

feeling bad about yourself part this

game is actually quite fun but you'll

get hung up in a spot restart screw up

before you can even get to that spot

again restart try to figure out the Ang

Les hit that spot you're working on and

go flying off the track restart again

it's all about hammering away at each

section and figuring the track out

following the ghost's examples getting a

little better all the time you'll think

you're on track for the perfect run and

you'll it up somewhere new and then

things will click and you'll suddenly be

weirdly good at a track that was giving

you nothing but grief minutes before

mastering the track is a process but in

my singular and personal quest for

incremental Improvement I found track

Mania put me in a trans-like state with

its thumping soundtrack track and the 10

minutes I intended to play for quickly

turned into an hour I line up against

myself again and finally I have a good

run I come out the gate strong and nail

the first turn turn two goes how I want

it to and so does turn three and I'm

able to pull out ahead this is it this

is what I've been working towards this

is where I finally overtake this so this

is where

I hit a tree right at the

end God I hate that guy when you're not

grinding it out to knock Nan seconds off

your best time there are a couple other

freeto playay modes in Royal you compete

as a team of three to complete insane

gimmick levels that have several

different sections to clear the three

worst performing teams get kicked out

each level I was really bad at this mode

and got carried super hard which speaks

to the level of disparity between new

and seasoned players then there's ranked

where you compete as a team of three to

complete the same track over and over

again to see which team can run it the

best each player receives points based

on what place they came in and the best

overall score wins the round I was much

better at the mode but found that rank

matches usually ended up kind of

one-sided finally there's a track

builder which is very reminiscent of the

roller coaster designer in Roller

Coaster Tycoon I could see where someone

could pour a lot of hours into this if

you want to play other people's created

levels you must Step Beyond the bounds

of your free toop playay modes And

subscribe for a yearly membership there

are two membership tiers and I couldn't

see any compelling reason to not just

subscribe to the cheaper level at$ 13

Canadian dollars for the year getting

this pass lets you play special daily

races any past Seasons that track Mania

has run as well as Seasons created by

specific clubs that have formed in the

game going through the club level menu

it becomes quickly apparent that there

is a very overwhelming number of levels

to choose from and while they can be

pretty cool I didn't enjoy them the same

way I enjoyed the mass competition

season infrastructure of the main game

mode there just isn't that same feeling

of reward when you rank top 100 in

British Columbia on a level that maybe

only 100 people from your region have

played while $13 for an entire year of

season pass access is is a very good

deal in the world of freeo play I can't

imagine it's the subscription I would

renew when everything I enjoyed was

available for free but if you want to

dive head first into track Mania there

is a huge worldwide competitive scene

with Infamous high scores and yearslong

battles between top Racers what made me

really like this game aside from it

being well produced fun and addictive is

that while there are rankings the main

goal is to just do a little better the

prompt to retry a race is improved and I

think that we could stand to have more

more games that are built around doing

your personal best the game isn't asking

you to not suck it's encouraging you to

suck slightly less all the time I line

up to go again eager to beat my personal

best once and for all I slam the

accelerate button ready to hit the first

turn but have a tough start I'm shaky on

the first few turns and fall behind I

see my a-hole past self ahead of me but

instead of hitting restart I feel a fire

in my very soul I grip the controller a

little tighter lean forward and hang in

through to the back half where I get a

good line and accelerate long enough to

push past my dumb ghost just got to hang

on the finish line is right there I

managed to hang on and embarrass my

loser past self by all

of 452 seconds but that's what the game

is about small incremental minuscule

imperceptible improvements in this race

I learned the most important lesson just

hang in there if you fall behind you can

make up the time but after all this my

time still wasn't good enough for gold

so I hit the improve button again hey

who's this

it's time to answer the

question would I play this game if I was

not destined to do so for track Mania

the answer is yes in the world of

free-to-play games track Mania is a

breath of fresh air in terms of how much

gameplay it actually offers you for free

and the people who would pay for the

extra content are the people who this

game is made for people who love to

quantify their skills and or relish

incremental progress on the flip side of

that be warned the track Mania is not

for people who get easily frustrated

while I didn't really care that much

about any of the modes outside of the

core season time trial mode track media

offers a polished and fun experience

that is easy to play but hard to master

that does it for this episode I want to

thank Sim killer for recommending this

game if you want to take part in future

game request episodes all you have to do

is subscribe to the patreon at the

second or third tier the patreon

community has been a huge help in

developing this Channel and gives me the

Financial Freedom to do the thing I love

play weird games I never would have

played otherwise because fate demanded

it if you want to support the channel

the link is in the video description

until next time make sure to improve

incrementally so you can show yourself

who's boss and I'll see you all soon on

random game

reviews thanks as always to my

subscribers on patreon I asked my

friends on the Discord to tell me what

country they hell from so we can see

what their track Mania Racers look like

behold

[Music]

around