Mad Tracks

Not to be confused with Mad Trax.

Mad Tracks,^[b] also known as Small cars 3D^[c] in France,^[1] is a 2006 racing video game developed by Load Inc. and published by various publishers for several platforms. Inspired by toy cars produced by Darda, players assume the role of spring-powered toy cars in racing competitions and minigames through various everyday environments.

Mad Tracks
Xbox Live Arcade cover art
Developer(s)	Load Inc.[a]
Publisher(s)	Windows FRA: Micro Application GER: Frogstar Interactive RUS: Akella WW: Element5 POL: Nicolas Games Steam WW: Plug In Digital Xbox 360 WW: D3 Publisher Wii EU: Bigben Interactive FRA: Neko Entertainment iOS, Android WW: Namco Bandai
Composer(s)	La Chimiz Prod
Engine	Open Dynamics Engine
Platform(s)	Windows Xbox 360 Wii iOS Android
Release	February 17, 2006 Windows FRA: February 17, 2006 GER: February 2006 RUS: June 13, 2006 WW: July 10, 2006 POL: 2006 Xbox 360 WW: May 30, 2007 Wii EU: October 30, 2009 FRA: December 4, 2009 AU: 2009 iOS WW: December 15, 2011 Android WW: February 15, 2012 Steam WW: March 10, 2020
Genre(s)	Racing
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Mad Tracks was the debut title for the Paris-based studio Load Inc., originally released for Microsoft Windows in 2006, later being ported to the Xbox 360 as part of Xbox Live Arcade on May 30, 2007, and in February 2017 after becoming backwards compatible with Xbox One. It was also released on the Wii in Europe and Australia in 2009, followed by moblie port on iOS in 2011 and Android a year later. In February 2019, it was announced that the game was delisted from Xbox Live Arcade because of a change in publishing rights from D3 Publisher to Plug In Digital. The latter released a reworked high-definition (HD) version of the game on Steam on March 10, 2020.

Mad Tracks was a commercial and critical success, being praised by critics and journalists for its multiplayer elements.

Gameplay

Mad Tracks is a 3D racing game featuring both a single-player mode and a multiplayer mode. There are 46 courses in total, divided into races and minigames. The courses are set in 10 different locations including kitchens, bistros, and a table football set.^[2][3]

Inspired by Darda's toy cars, the cars in Mad Tracks feature spring-powered batteries. The longer the player accelerates, the weaker the spring becomes. The battery eventually runs out, after which the player can no longer accelerate. The player can regenerate power by letting go of the acceleration button; the spring immediately recharges.^[4][5][6][7] It will also recharge whilst being airborne or reversing. The amount of usage of a spring will also depends on which type of a car is used. Other methods of recharging the spring includes finding and using one of the power-ups, along with one that drains opponents' batteries.^[5]

In single-player,^[d] the player's objective is to achieve gold trophies by completing objectives, such as driving around a track or landing cars on a dartboard.^[8] The multiplayer^[e] modes are similar to the single-player mode and include the same objectives, albeit they allow up to four on local at split-screen,^[9] and up to eight players online to play simultaneously.^[10][11]

Development

Mad Tracks was developed by Load Inc.,^[12] based in Paris and founded in 2003 by vice president (VP) Denis Bourdainin, consisting of former Ubisoft employees.^{[13][12][14][15]} The game was originally a licensed game based on the Darda toy cars, but the game was reworked and retitled to Mad Tracks after the studio's failure to secure the right to use the brand.^[16] Many elements of the game like oppoment AI, rendering or physics engine, took team 18 months to develop.^[14]

It initially started development for Windows and the PlayStation 2.^[17] An Xbox port was announced in March 2005.^[18]

After a demo of the game was showcased at E3 in May 2004, the studio searched for a publisher. It was also announced that the game would be released on PlayStation Portable, and that its release was planned for the second quarter of 2005.^[19] In November, Load Inc. signed a contract with Micro Application to publish the game. Its premiere was moved to the third half of 2005, with the exact date left unknown.^[20][21][22] The game was showcased at E3 in May 2005, and its premiere were slated for September 2005.^[23]

A release date was later moved to February 17, 2006, after releasing a public demo in January 10.^[24][25] On January 13, the game's official website was launched,^[2][26][27] with a German version following suit in November 2005.^[28][29] The PlayStation 2 version was later confirmed to be cancelled,^[when?] since for the studio console was becoming an increasingly less viable option for target platform release.^[30]

Xbox Live Arcade

Xbox 360 version for Xbox Live Arcade of Mad Tracks was announced, shortly after initial release of the game on PC.^[31] Following delays of a release date from June to October.^{[32][33][34][35][36]} In August 10, the game was delayed and slated for the following year,^{[37][38][39][40]} due to combination of time and technical difficulties, with online multiplayer support, in addition to the code been rewritten from the ground up to be runable on Xbox Live Arcade.^[41][42]

A month later in November, Denis Bourdainin had stated that the game would cost 800 Microsoft Points (€9.30), alongside two expansion packs each costing 400 Microsoft Points (€4.65). Concerning the rise of a price in comparison to the PC counterpart, Denis had promised that the Xbox 360 version would be superior to the PC version. Alongside Xbox Live support, the console translation's long development time also enabled improvements to game mechanics and graphics to be made.^[43] Xbox 360 version of the game was done with 7 employees of the studio, in a year of its development.^[10][15][44] It was also one of the first games on Xbox Live to feature a support for multiple languages.^[45][46]

In May 2007, D3 Publisher of America, Inc. had announced that the game would be ported to Xbox 360 alongside RocketBowl (2004) and Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords (2007), though the port's release date was unknown.^{[47][48][49][50]} In May 15–17 of the same year, the game was greenlighted after being verified and certified by Microsoft Game Studios.^[51][52][53] It was also confirmed that the game would cost 800 Microsoft points ($10), but according to Denis Bourdain the release date was at a time unknown.^[54][55] Around May 28–29, it was announced that game would arrive on the Xbox Live Arcade on May 30.^{[56][57][58][59][60][61][62]}

Release

Mad Tracks was released for Microsoft Windows in France on February 17, 2006, and published by Micro Application.^[24] Along with a completed demo of the game was released on January 10, featuring three courses.^[24][63][64] Later that same month, the game was released in German and published by Frogstar Interactive.^[65] This was done alongside a patch update—version 1.1. This update fixed bugs, improved performance, online, graphic cards and controller support. The game's file size was dropped from 55 to 29 megabytes.^{[66][67][68][69]} Another patch update, version 1.2, was released on April 20, and improved online multiplayer support, fixed a problem with the game's level of detail for 2D mipmap rendering, added matchmaking and support for non-western keyboards.^{[70][71][72][73]} In June the game was published by Akella and released in Russia.^[f][76][77] In July, the game was released as a Digital distribution, with its publisher being Element5.^{[78][79][80][81][82]} That same year, in Poland the game was released and published by Nicolas Games.^[47][52]

The Xbox 360 version was released on Xbox Live Arcade and published by D3 Publisher on May 30, 2007.^{[9][83][84][85][86]} In July 12, a patch for the Xbox version was released that fixed a bug which prevented progress in the game that affected some players, who couldn't purchase the full game after first downloading its demo.^{[87][88][89][90]} This was earlier discovered in June by the reports in the Xbox forums, shortly after its initial launch of the port.^{[91][92][93][94]} Denis expressed that "a minority of Xbox users suffered from this bug".^[95] Two downloadable content packs for the Xbox 360 version of Mad Tracks were produced, each costing 350 Microsoft Points ($4.37) and adding 15 challenges in total.^[84][56][96] The first was "Bravo", and was released on July 25, 2007,^{[97][98][99][100][101]} alongside an extra theme "Crazy Cars" for 150 Microsoft Points.^[99] The second was "Encore", which released on June 27, 2007.^{[g][102][103][104]} Each of these content packs added 9 races and 6 minigames.^[97][102]

A port for the Wii was released in the October 30, 2009 in Europe, and was published by Bigben Interactive,^[105][106] and in France at December 4, by Neko Entertainment.^[107] It was also released in Australia by an unknown publisher.^[108] Following its announcement in February earlier that year.^[109][110] Which can with a Wii whell accessory.^[107][108] A mobile version of the game for iOS was published by Namco Bandai and released on December 15, 2011.^[111][112] An Android version was released on February 15, 2012.^[113] In February 2017, the game become backwards compatible with Xbox One.^{[114][115][116]} In February 2019, it was reported that the game was delisted from Xbox Live Arcade following a change in publishing rights from D3 Publisher to Plug In Digital, who would later be handling the new release for Steam.^[117][118] While the Steam version's release date was slated for "early 2020", the page for the game on IndieDB specified that it would and was released on March 10 as a HD version.^[118][119]

Reception

Reception

Review scores

Publication	Score
IGN	6.8/10
Pocket Gamer	3/5

For the PC version, Keith Durocher of WorthPlaying gave a score of 8.9/10 to the PC version, describing the game as "a tiny little blast of fun that sets out to do nothing more than entertain for awhile and it succeeds." He also added that he had "seen much worse offerings from much bigger and better funded teams than Load, Inc." and positively compared the game to Nintendo's Mario Kart series.^[120]

For the Xbox 360 version, Jonathan Miller, writing for IGN, described Mad Tracks as "a decent racing romp, but you better bring your friends." He awarded the game a score of 6.8/10.^[96] Greg Sewart of GamesRadar+ gave 4 out of 5 stars, critic praised gameplay, variety of the of the courses (game modes) and online support, but criticized visuals, confusing early sections of the courses and small amount of content (in the version's basic form).^[121]

For the moblie version of the game on iOS. iPhone app review aggregator appsafari.com gave the game a score of 4.5 out of 5 saying; "While there is the one small problem with the controls, this app is very fun and works very well. If you are interested in racing and blowing up other cars, you will certainly get some fun out of this."^[122] Peter Willington of the video game website Pocket Gamer gave a score of 3 out of 5, criticizing the grinding in order to progress such as making Championship mode and AI repetitive, but praised game's overall variety of content, multiplayer and controls, despite being underwhelmed with lacklustre visual effects, graphics, audio and items aspect. Ultimately, he wrote that "it's not a bad looking game, the frame rate holds steady for the most part, the car models feel chunky though not distinctive, the tracks wind and loop through the detailed environments."^[123]

Sales

Mad Tracks was a commercial success, but the initial sales during release of the demo on PC were overwhelming, according to the studio. Where in the first two weeks, about 6,000 was downloaded in Brazil. GameSpot and CNET Download later relayed it with each getting about 100,000 downloads. As of result Load inc. decided to sale the game on their website.^[124]

In July 2006, Load Inc. had reported that demo of the game on PC was downloaded 400,000 times since its release.^[124][125] By January 2007, had sold digitally 100,000 times on PC.^{[126][127][128][129]} Later that same year in December, it was reported sells reached over 1.8 million units, and its demo since its release was downloaded 1.2 million times and on Xbox Live Arcade over 630,000 users, six months after the Xbox 360 version's release.^{[130][131][132][133][134]} In June 2008, Engadget and Yahoo! finance reported that the Xbox 360 version's demo was played 700,000 times and had sold 72,000 units.^[135][136] That same version had sold 1 million units, by February 2010.^[137]

Awards

On September 21, 2007, the Xbox 360 version of Mad Tracks was nominated for Best Home Console Game, during the Video Game Festival Award 2007 at Paris in France.^{[138][139][140]}

Year	Award	Category	Result	Ref.
2007	Video Game Festival Award	Best Home Console Game	Nominated	[141]

Legacy

See also: Things on Wheels

While Mad Tracks never gathered much interest from the gaming press,^[142] Load Inc. started development on their next game, Things on Wheels, for Xbox 360.^{[143][144][145][142]} Released for Xbox Live Arcade on May 12, 2010,^{[146][147][148]} it featured a similar premise to Mad Tracks.^[149] It was removed from the Xbox 360 store on July 29, 2024, along with over 220 digital titles, making it no longer purchasable^[150][151] nor backward compatible with Xbox Series X and Series S.^{[151][152][153]}

Notes

1. Load inc. had also developed the Steam version, under the name "Loadinc. Entertainment.".
2. Russian: Mad Tracks: Заводные Гонки
   Romanized: Mad Tracks: Zavodnyye Gonki (lit. Mad Tracks: Groovy Racing/Clockwork Races)
3. French: Petites voitures 3D
4. Known as Adventure mode in the Steam and PC versions
5. Also known as Arcade mode.
6. The game was first scheduled to be released in May, for that region.^[74][75]
7. This content pack wasn't released in both North and South Korea.