In between bouts of cursing, troubleshooting installations, and spending close to ten hours on the phone with our host this week, I found some time to play around with Trackmania Nations Forever – a free Steam exclusive version of the ultra popular Trackmania United. I’ve always been a rabid fan of racing games but for some reason I never got around to giving this one a try until now.

In a nutshell, Trackmania Nations Forever is an over the top kart style racer that draws its influence from Matchbox cars and the world of R/C hobbyists. There’s a heavy emphasis on user generated content – and the included race editor is easily the best content creation tool I’ve ever seen in a video game. I’ve spent more time building and testing my ridiculous ideas for tracks than I have actually playing the game.

If you like racing games, there’s nothing not to like about this one. It’s free. It’s fun. It’s not a huge resource hog. Grab it and play!