Trackmania Reborn

While I have never purchased any of the Trackmania retail games I can rejoice it what appears to be the follow up to Nadeo's first free game. TrackMania Nations Forever is the essentially the sequel to TrackMania Nations. Nations was created as a sponsor and ad paid competitive game for the 2006 Electronic Sports World Cup. All of the guys that I play video games with blew up on this game and played it exclusively for around 4-5 months. We had a server with our own custom maps running and eventually built a community of regulars.

We ultimately ended up back in the realm of competitive shooters, but our brief affair with the super arcade racing game was not to be forgotten. Flash forward to 2008 and the next iteration of the free competitive racer. Forever adds dirt tracks, indoor tracks and better graphics to the long list of features already available in the first game. Swiss and I played Monday night and I went at it solo last night. It has the same draw as the first game, but if my friends don't play it I can't see sticking with it. Time for friends marketing campaign I guess (this post is the first volley).

Comics
Erik sent over a comics recommendation list by way of Crystal to me this morning. It is solid with a few of comics that are already on my list of "to read", but a bunch that were not on my radar. If Crystal had thought through the simple act of sending me a list of comics, she probably would try to take it back. My list was already super long and now I have even more books to read. That means more money and time spent in the world of comics. I'm super geeked!