If you think time is your biggest enemy, then think again. The TrackMania series has garnered a real cult following since its inception in 2003. They have built thousands of tracks, made countless car models, clocked amazing times on all the courses, and, created some of the coolest stunt videos of all time.

It is a breath of fresh air, bringing a sense of fun and vitality back to racing. TrackMania United picks up where TrackMania Sunrise left off, with the same main modes and essentially the same content. The biggest change is that TrackMania United recognises the role of the community more than any of the previous releases.

The single player component of TrackMania United is divided into three different modes. The Race mode is all about time trials — rocketing through each course to try and beat the coveted gold medal time. There is a huge array of courses and difficulty levels. The mode is divided into theme settings — Stadium, Island, Desert, Rally, Bay, Coast and Snow, with each offering its own unique vehicle and its own style of design to suit that vehicle. It has enough content to keep the average arcade racing fan happy for hours.

This game is unique with its level of online integration. When you boot into the game you’re automatically logged on to the TrackMania servers. So if you click on a particular race, the game brings up the top 10 timings for the course and you can also see replays of each game.

Though the Race mode doesn’t necessarily revolutionise the racing genre, the other two modes in the game — although not new to the series — really shake things up. In the Puzzle mode, you’re presented with an area of land with a starting point, a finishing line and checkpoints scattered across. You have to construct a path from start to finish through all the checkpoints, but that’s only one part of it. You still have time to beat, to earn those precious medals.

The final mode is Platform, and it’s a fantastic combination of inventive course design and precision driving. One course, for instance, may put you behind the wheel of a sports car and demand that you negotiate a treacherous course filled with loops, drops and huge jumps that have to be done at just the right speed and angle to land on the next track. Anything you download through the game will cost you Coppers, the currency of TrackMania. You can earn them in a number of ways, by uploading content, posting medal winning “official” time or even just logging in to the game each day. If you’ve never played TrackMania before, and want a game that gives you a fair share of fun and challenge, then this one’s for you.

Minimum System Requirements: Operating System: Windows 2000/XP, processor: 1.6 GHz or higher, RAM: 256 MB or higher, 3D video card: 16 MB or higher, free hard disk space: 1.5 GB or higher, DVD-Rom: 8x or higher.