Matt writes: For those who are unfamiliar with it, Trackmania is an online only racing series that puts a focus on user created tracks, completely balanced multiplayer achieved by having only a single handling and acceleration model (basically a single car) applied to every vehicle., and time trial based gameplay with no vehicle collision (making every other player essentially a ghost).The goal of the expanded Mania series was to take these concepts and apply to other genres. Obviously a competitive shooter has to have more direct competition than time trials, but the other two concepts are core to the Shootmania experience as well.
One Angry Gamer "Now here’s a bit of news you probably didn’t see coming: Nadeo has announced that you can gain free access to their ManiaPlanet games right now, no strings attached. You download the free demo and for 48 hours straight you can play the ManiaPlanet titles for free."
Shootmania Platform, developed by Nadeo, will be free in its current beta form for the whole summer.
The Trackmania games rarely go on sale, so getting any and/or all of them is a recommendation.