TrackMania DS dated for North America, published by ... Atlus?
by Chris Greenhough 
{ Nov 19th 2008 at 7:15PM }
Lucky old Europe got TrackMania DS last week, but North America will have to wait for its version, which has just been announced for March 17th. As if North America waiting four months longer than Europe for a game wasn't already bizarre enough, you should hear who's publishing it: Atlus. Yeah, the same Atlus that is far more closely associated with dungeon crawlers and RPGs.Whoever wants to localize it, we'll be welcoming the twisty brilliance of TrackMania DS with a great big hug. Not only does it contain over 100 tracks and an insanely great track editor (check after the break for a video of this at work), but almost all of the early reviews are glowing. Could it be? A racing game on Nintendo's portable that actually works and isn't Mario Kart DS?
Gallery: TrackMania DS
[Via press release]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
aj @ Nov 20th 2008 12:43AM
I got the Atlus e-mail about it. A bit bizzarre, but any game that includes a level editor is automatically awesome because it allows my wife and I to torment each other with no-win levels.
I'm just waiting for confused people to insist that it must be a racing RPG because it's released by Atlus.
chispito @ Nov 20th 2008 1:56AM
TM is a good fit for the DS because unlike a lot of racing games, it isn't designed to be played with analog control. It's too bad it won't have the online servers like the PC version has. Those are always fun, and a good place to meet European gamer friends.
Covarr @ Nov 20th 2008 4:45AM
Atlus frequently publishes games solely because nobody else has. They published one of my favorite GBA games, Super Dodgeball Advance, so I'm not terribly surprised to see them publishing other stuff out of the blue like this.
Shanks @ Nov 20th 2008 8:17AM
I loved the track editor in F-Zero Climax, but its track sharing scheme was like typing in 4 friend codes back-to-back. Since the wireless-fi solves this, it's a must-have for me. Now if only there was a cheat code to make the racers hover...
stu @ Nov 20th 2008 11:12AM
Trackmania is a massive let down, don't waste your money. The best feature of the game is effectively useless as you cant race your home made tracks. There is NO wifi and the whole game feels like a poor buggy port. And not like a properly tested ds game.
Shame because it could have been such a massive game if only they had the foresight to give gamers what they wanted.
If I could race online and download/upload user made tracks then that might have papered over the cracks but I cant.
Dont waste your time...
5/10