I’m utterly lost for words. The DS has a great racing game that isn’t Mario Kart. You might not have heard of it in Console Land, but TrackMania has gone down a storm in times past in PC Land, even going so far as to set a world record. The thing is, transferring a racing game of such massive (online) ambitions to an underpowered handheld with less (online) ambitions would be an extraordinarily tricky task.

The thing is, Glasgow-based Firebrand Games (where I live, wheee!) have pulled the same tricks they pulled with the DS edition of Race Driver and have somehow, magically, made a truly enjoyable piece of arcade driving for Nintendo’s handheld.

If that’s enough of a verdict for you to go and buy it, then that’s fine. The rest of you can read my NonReview after the jump.

As per, the quick backstory. Back in 2003, little-known French dev team Nadeo cranked out an arcadey racing game called TrackMania. Designed to be compatible with high-powered machines and budget PCs alike, the game embraced the idea of an online racing community creating and sharing car designs and tracks and racing together just for the fun of it, rather than out of competition.

Using  misleadingly-simple block-based track editor, vast stunt-filled tracks can be created out of ready-made track blocks ranging from simple straights and long curves to loop-the-loops and speed-boost pads. The game spawned a sequel, Sunrise, along with a free-to-play edition called Nations, and most recently an all-in-one edition subtitled United Forever. Thousands still play it today despite its age.

TrackMania DS takes a selection of stuff from the original TM and the Nations sequel resulting in three cars each with their own handling characteristics and three environments with their own unique look and set of blocks. While this may sound a little limited on paper, it’s more than enough because TrackMania is not a Gran Turismo, filled with different cars with different handling models. It’s a game that you play because it’s fun, not because it’s serious.

TMDS‘ not-so-serious gameplay is spread across the three environments – deserts in a muscle car, forests in a rallying compact, a stadium in a race-built machine – and across three modes. Race mode sets you up against several ghost cars as you try to beat their times, Platform sets you up on various tricky courses with the aim being to finish the track without resetting your car, and Puzzle gives you use of the Editor to complete a broken circuit and then finish it in the fastest time possible. While it’s sort of lonesome it’s still great fun; the lack of direct competition reminding you that this is not a game you take too seriously.

Of course, there’s no point blabbering on about the game’s modes if there’s no substance to how you actually drive in them. But, astonishingly, given the DS’s track record for racing games (ahem…Burnout Legends) there is a lot of substance to TMDS’s cars. Page two awaits!

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