ATLUS BRINGING TRACKMANIA DS STATESIDE

Today’s award for Most Unlikely Publisher goes to RPG stalwarts Atlus, who have just announced they’ll be bringing Firebrand Games’ Trackmania DS to the U.S. in March of 2009, and even for ‘just-slightly’ casual fans of racing games, this should be happy news.

It’s no mistake that the franchise has one of the largest and most dedicated audiences in the genre: the series excels at joyfully purist arcade design mixed with puzzle and stunt elements and a fully-featured track editor, all of which, European reviews have very happily reported, have perfectly made their way to the portable version. Essentially, if you have any nostalgia for racing classics like Stunts and Racing Destruction Set, or, quite simply, like to move things quickly around a track and make awesome jumps and loop-de-loops, this is the game you want.

Try the free Steam version, Trackmania Nations Forever, for a taste of what the fuss is about.

Trackmania DS [Atlus]