It’s been a while since we reported on upcoming Xbox Live Arcade racer Mad Tracks, and at that time not too much was known yet about the XBLA edition of this Car Arcade Party Game as they call it. That was before French Load Inc. big wig Denis Bourdain joined the Xboxic forum himself to answer any question we might have. And answer he did!

Essentially the game is about racing small cars in familiar environments like living rooms, kitchens and ball rooms. Micro Machines anyone? Sure, but this time obviously in full 3D, and you will be competing in all sorts of challenges, both racing and minigames like foosball, darts and bowling. The most important features:

• Multiplayer up to 4 only split screen (we promise the next title will be live, we have been working on it).
• High rez HDTV real time 3D & optimized frame rate (thanks to the Xbox pa-wer)
• 15 challenges (races & mini games - yes, you will play foos ball & pool)
• 12 pick ups - remember ReVolt? Well in Mad Tracks, you can stack them up and switch.
• 360 specific menu & interface
• 48 leaderboards to see who’s got the biggest
• Modes will include: Championship & Arcade

Shame about no Live support, but the 48 leaderboards, used for tracking times and so-called Mad Points, and 4 player split screen madness hopefully more than make up for this:

Whereas the original PC game (demo downloadable here) was over 300MB in size, the guys managed to squeeze it down into the 50MB XBLA limit, meanwhile enhancing the game and optimizing it for HDTV. Now there’s proof that bloated code is the hallmark of the sloppy developer if ever I saw one. As Denis puts it: “This thing [the Xbox 360 - ed.] can eat, digest, process and dispose of about anything.”

The game will be having the regular 12 Achievements for XBLA games. The only one we know of so far is a 10GP Achievement called “8 Ball : Win a pool game without pocketing the black ball. 10 Pts.”, but at least they will all be used to force you play every aspect of the game. Some regular ones will be there like achieving all medals of a specific color, but there will also be an achievement that requires you to compete in split screen and one that forces to you to find hidden objects in free roaming maps.

So when will we be getting our hands on this game? Denis is cautious, trying to avoid Capcom-style Street Fighter 2 deceptions, but will say that they aim to pass first MS certification mid July, and then it’s up to Microsoft to set the final release date. Hopefully this will lead to an August release, but no solid promises. We’ve seen what happens with solid dates for Marketplace release dates mmmkay?

If the guys at Load Inc. have their say the game will cost 800MP since they don’t favor the 1200MP price point, but again MS will have also have a say in this. There will also be DLC available for the game, like Mad Tracks Encore and Mad Tracks Bravo, both supplying an extra 15 challenges to the game.

Are you also excited about the game, or just looking for more information? Either way, register on our forum and join in on this topic, Denis will be more than happy to answer anything you throw at him it seems.