Mad Tracks demo for Windows

In one sentence, Mad Tracks is a combination of Trackmania-style racing with MarioKartesque power-ups. The result is an attractive and enjoyable arcade racer, but a lack of instructions, unadjustable camera angles, and occasional frame lag prevent the demo from earning a top rating.

Since there's no in-game instruction or read-me file, the basic keyboard controls use arrow keys for acceleration and steering, left Control for using a power-up, and Shift for rotating through your power-ups. The demo provides three basic levels: a training track, a foosball table, and "Rock 'N' Race," which is a basic "Hot Wheels" track, featuring loops, jumps, and twists. A variety of nationalities are involved in each race, but with the three provided tracks, there's little indication of how teamwork applies. One exception is the foosball table, where you must work with your British teammate to score goals on your French opponents. While the concept seems good in theory, the practical application is less successful due to limiting camera angles.

As mentioned, we experienced some mild-to-moderate frame lag when playing the game while other applications were running, even at 800x600 resolution, but the game installed smoothly and loading time for tracks was minimal. While it was easy to connect to the multiplayer servers, it was quite difficult to find any opponents. That may change as the game has more time to spread.