I love the TrackMania series of games and spent many an hour on TM Nations Forever from release and after steam launch. So I decided to purchase the whole TM collection, starting with Canyon.

And that's where the problems and frustration start. As the trend of negative comments show, the DRM of ManiaPlanet is terrible and far outdated. Firstly, it requires an always online connection, even when "offline" mode is selected! Secondly, my old account (and achievements) worked once and after that wouldn't be recognised (even after changing password). Waiting without a reply from TM support for over a week is not really professional and of course re-installing the game does not help as it now gives a "key is in use" error!?!

All in all, TrackMania Canyon has many positives as an arcade racer (editor) but I cannot recommend a game which uses a third party service (ManiaPlanet) with so many problems and non-existent support. I've spent 30mins in game and over 10x times that scouring the forums (fora?) trying to resolve issues with it. If Nadeo isn't bothered improving their service to support their TrackMania titles, why waste any money on them? In the end I had to request a steam refund.

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TL;DR: TrackMania Canyon is a good fun arcade racer but be prepared to experience many problems with their "always online" 3rd party service required. I would suggest to download the free TrackMania Nations Forever and give it a spin ironing out any potential problems first, before splashing out on any of the paid titles. Good luck.

I love the TrackMania series of games and spent many an hour on TM Nations Forever from release and after steam launch. So I decided to purchase the whole TM collection, starting with Canyon. And that's where the problems and frustration start. As the trend of negative comments show, the DRM of ManiaPlanet is terrible and far outdated. Firstly, it requires an always online connection, even when "offline" mode is selected! Secondly, my old account (and achievements) worked once and after that wouldn't be recognised (even after changing password). Waiting without a reply from TM support for over a week is not really professional and of course re-installing the game does not help as it now gives a "key is in use" error!?! All in all, [b]TrackMania Canyon[/b] has many positives as an arcade racer (editor) but I cannot recommend a game which uses a third party service (ManiaPlanet) with so many problems and non-existent support. I've spent 30mins in game and over 10x times that scouring the forums (fora?) trying to resolve issues with it. If Nadeo isn't bothered improving their service to support their TrackMania titles, why waste any money on them? In the end I had to request a steam refund. ----- TL;DR: TrackMania Canyon is a good fun arcade racer but be prepared to experience many problems with their "always online" 3rd party service required. I would suggest to download the free [i]TrackMania Nations Forever[/i] and give it a spin ironing out any potential problems first, before splashing out on any of the paid titles. Good luck.