Earlier this year we reviewed .vs Racing and thoroughly enjoyed it, the only flaw being the lack of online multiplayer and Game Center integration. Now though VS. Racing 2 has been released promising to address some of those issues and a lot more.
VS. Racing 2 is a top down arcade racer where you race your tiny car around 36 different tracks. Your car can, and will need to be, upgraded based on the coins that you earn competing in races. Don’t worry if you don’t like to have to tinker with your car though as all you can tweak is your speed, acceleration and off-road capabilities.
There are three modes to the racing, first up is the standard single player fare where you unlock tracks as you progress through winning races. Online multiplayer has also been addressed although this is not real time racing. Instead you get to set a time around the track and then challenge a friend to beat your ghost time. It’s an improvement on the original but still no replacement for full online multiplayer racing.
Finally there is local multiplayer racing and this time there is the addition power-ups that you can pick up on track and unleash on your opponents including mines, oil and speed boosts to name but a few. This is a nice addition should you have the occasion where you have a group of friends available to play locally.
Once again the controls work well with three options available for you to pick from, these are virtual buttons, virtual steering wheel and the accelerometer. All of these are work well and it will really be down to personal preference as to which one works for you. What would be nice if it was possible to control the sensitivity of these controls too.
While the controls work well within the game the same can’t be said for the navigation menu’s which are sluggish. Sluggishness is also a problem in the loading of each level which considering the racing tracks are so small take a long time to load.
The tracks do look nice though, they show a good level of detail around the tracks should you ever find the time to look at it as you race around the track at speed. There are also multiple surfaces which directly affect how the car handles which you will have to take into consideration unless you want to go from 1st to 4th in a single corner.
With the addition of Game Center achievements as well as the ghost online racing this is certainly an improvement on .vs Racing, however the sluggish navigation and long load times let it down.
If you want to give it a try then VS. Racing 2 is available in the App Store for $0.99.
[rating: 3.5/5]The game gives you a top down view of the racing track with you and your opponents taking up just a handful of pixels as you race around a variety of tracks that twist and turn around the screen.
The tracks are to scale with the miniature cars but despite their size they provide lots of detail, tricky corners, fast straights and various surfaces that affect the handling of the cars.
The game has a narrative in the single player mode where you play the role of Ryan, a rookie racing driver who you have to bring up through the ranks of five championships on your way to the World Championship Finals.
While the narrative is fun it’s pretty irrelevant to the racing and luckily it doesn’t get in the way of it either. In fact you can move from race to race pretty quickly which means the action keeps coming thick and fast.
You have a choice of controls for your car which includes both touch and accelerometer controls. My weapon of choice was the touch controls which I found very responsive. You only need to worry about steering as acceleration is automatic.
Included with the auto-acceleration is a speed boost which helps you catch up if you are running behind the leader, however this is a double edge sword as this speed boost also applies to your opponents so large leads can be eaten into pretty quickly.
This is no bad thing though as it keeps all of the races exciting right up until the last corner and while this may be a little frustration the speed in which you can replay the race means that you can get your revenge very quickly.
The multi-player options are local bluetooth & wifi and Facebook leaderboards which includes a Ghost Mode so that you can races against your friends ghost cars. These are fun alternatives to the single player mode but GameCenter integration and online multi-player would be nice additions.
If you enjoy racing games of all descriptions you won’t be disappointed with VS. Racing especially if you can grab it while it’s still free. With future free updates also promised this could be a real bargain.
[rating: 4/5]What we like
What to know
While car racing games dominate the App Store racing market there are those that prefer 2 wheeled transport and for those people there’s a new ride in town in the form of Rock(s) Rider, a new universal game that’s available in the App Store right now.
Rock(s) Rider is a trials based motorcycle game where your opponents are both a variety of obstacles and the clock and is based in a DaftPunk style warehouse full of ramps, jumps, loops and fireworks, yes fireworks!
If you’ve played Bike Baron before then you’ll have the basic idea of what you are in for here, however while Bike Baron is cartoon style arcade game, Rock(s) Racer is more of a simulator, with a few bells and whistles added for good measure.
The graphics look great, from the line-drawn design on the I game navigation to the industrial graphics of the levels themselves you aren’t going to be disappointed and the pleasure is matched in the audio department too where a pumping soundtrack and great sounding audio effects create an environment which you’ll want to keep coming back to.
Despite the claustrophobic confines of the warehouse each level is packed with action and controlling your two wheeled chariot over and through these obstacles is fun, challenging and at times frustrating.
These frustrations come from some of the level designs which can often leave your motorcycle trapped in a position that it can’t get out of. Sure you can go back to your last check point but the fact that you can even get stuck is, as I mentioned before, frustrating.
That frustration aside the game is a lot of fun, the controls are accurate and have multiple configurations so that you can choose between virtual buttons and touch controls but a combination of them both too, add to that the ability to control the sensitivity of them means that you have no excuse to control your bike with skill and accuracy!
And the bike responds well to these controls to and after a few rides you should be able to get the bike to do pretty much as you please. Of course that may sound like the challenge to the game is over at that point, you’d be wrong though as the real challenge comes not only from control the bike but from anticipating the tracks, collecting the relevant objects and finding the hidden objects too.
All of this takes place across 24 progressively difficult levels, bonus levels and additional levels promised at a later stage too, as you progress you will unlock features for your bike and character as well as a 3 wheeled bike that you can use on the bonus levels. Once you think you’ve mastered the various tracks though you’ll find yourself racing side by side with the bosses who are out to prevent you taking their crown.
Leaderboards and 40 achievements are provided via GameCenter integration which provide additional challenge to the game and while it’s a Universal app there is no synchronization of your progress between devices.
Rock(s) Rider, despite its frustrations, is a fun and challenging game, if you like you racing action on two wheels then this could be $2.99 well spent.
[rating: 4/5]What we like
What to know
On rare occasions I will tell you to go and grab a game immediately and then come back and read this review…….this is one of those occasions and to be honest what do you have to lose when all you’ll be spending is 99 cents on a universal app that will work on both your iPhone and iPad should you be lucky enough to have both.
You may be thinking, especially if you already have Asphalt 6, why should I even spend more money on the next version of Gamelofts arcade racer and the simple answer is this, it’s Bigger, Better, Faster and there’s more of it, so much in fact this review may only scratch the surface of all the features that are packed into this racing game.
If you have played any of Gamelofts games before then you will know what to expect when it comes to sound and graphics, and in Asphalt7 Heat they continue to lead the way a rainbow of electric lights that illuminate 15 different tracks from all around the world and with a pumping soundtrack the game is a dream to both see and hear.
There are four control options to choose from so you are bound to find one that suits your driving preferences, from using the accelerometer, on screen steering wheel or the screen itself the controls work very well, and you can also choose from auto or manual acceleration depending on your preference.
The quality of the controls are highlighted due to the fact that you can jump straight into Quick Play mode and start winning races immediately. Quick Race is just the beginning though, as the Career, Online and Multiplayer modes are where the real value comes in.
The Career Mode is spread over 13 cups each with 4 different races and these include normal races, elimination, knockdown, paint job and king of the hill which all offer slightly different variations on driving as fast as you can around the streets of the world.
As you work your way through the career mode you’ll have the ability to unlock and upgrade a great range of licensed cars, from a Mini Cooper S to the Shelby GT 500, from a BMW Z4 to the Lamborghini Countach and everything in between. There are 60 cars in total so there should be something for everyone.
The cars handle as well as you would expect for an arcade racer, the game relies heavily on drifting but this is relatively easy to control, early on at least, only when you start to unlock the bigger, faster cars does it get a little trickier, by the time you unlock them though you’ll be well practised, right?
Of course you don’t have to work through the game and earn your racing stripes to unlock all the flash cars, instead you can purchase your in game dollars by spending your hard earned dollars via in-app purchase but it’s well balanced, meaning that if you are willing to put the time in you can achieve your rewards without the need of spending above and beyond the original $1 outlay.
The online options are really where the game comes to life and it does this in two ways. First up is the online multi-player where you can race against your friends, and enemies, in any combination of race types and locations. The online mode works well, the games come thick and fast and there is relatively little slow down, it adds a whole new dimension to the gameplay that will keep you playing Asphalt 7 for a long time to come, or at least until Asphalt 8 comes out!
If you don’t want to want to race against people online in real time you can choose the weekly event that makes up the Asphalt Academy and see how far up the world rankings you can get.
With the game being a universal app it’s good to see that your progress can be transferred between devices. Asphalt Tracker allows you to transfer your progress between devices using either Facebook, or Gameloft’s own servers and while this isn’t quite as seamless as iCloud syncing would be it works and prevents you having to play the game twice across all of your devices.
Asphalt Tracker also enables you to send offline challenges to your friends via Gameloft which just adds more depth to an already deep game and that’s before mentioning the goals are Gameloft’s equivalent of GameCenter Achievements.
After all this eulogizing you’d think that perhaps I didn’t have anything bad to say about the game, that’s not the case. Asphalt 7’s all about social gaming and this takes the form of Facebook integration, the problem with this is though that between races and for every earned goal you are prompted to confirm whether or not you want to publicize the achievement and if you don’t want to bombard your Facebook newsfeed with your progress it can get a little frustrating.
If you’ve got this far and have not been simultaneously downloading Asphalt 7 on your iOS device you have permission to do so now!
[rating: 5/5]What we like
What to know
When I got my first iPod Touch some years ago, one of the first games I purchased for it was a game called Slotz Racer by Freeverse, Inc. which is a slot car racing simulator game that I was addicted to as a child and was excited to play in the electronic form.
Well now there is a new kid on the block in the form of High Tech Racing from Graffiti Entertainment. Just like Slotz Racer, High Tech Racing offers slot car racing over multiple tracks with multiple difficulty levels and a track editor that allows you to build your own creative tracks including loops, chicanes and crossovers.
Let’s start with the racing which is where any player will spend most of their time. There are three difficulty levels to choose between as you begin and playing through all of them I would have to say that while Novice is relatively easy to complete the Advanced and Pro levels will provide a real challenge requiring multiple replays to move through the different tracks.
As you complete each of the difficulty levels you will unlock additional cars and parts so before moving to the next set of tracks remember to change and upgrade your car via your garage.
The garage system is relatively basic where you can scroll through the available cars and see their respective stats and also scroll though the engines, tires and chassis that you have unlocked and also see the corresponding affect that they have on your acceleration, top speed and grip.
Before each race the layout of the track is displayed on the screen to give you a taste of what to expect. There’s no ability to zoom in or rotate the track manually though as you preview it but it does help especially to warn you of jumps, loops and other obstacles that are on the track.
Controlling your slot car is via a scroll bar on the right side of the screen, push up to apply power and slide back to reduce power. Just like real slot car racing it’s all about speed control, head into a corner too fast and you’ll find your car flipping out of its slot, accelerate too fast out of a corner and the same will happen.
The car control physics are pretty realistic down to the fact that at some points the car will jump out of its slot for no apparent reason which is both realistic and frustrating! You can also race the game from three different views. Top was my view of choice which sets the view just behind your slot car. Racer gives you a first person perspective view of the race while Perspec looks the best as it pans around the table as if taken from a helicopter it’s not practicle if you plan on winning and completing the game.
Winning a race will unlock the next race in the set and at the end of each level you’ll be able to submit you time to the online leader boards to compare your times with other players around the world. Unfortunately the only option to view your best scores is via the website so if you wish to compare your times you have to leave the app and re-launch it later.
There are a good range of tracks each with a good range of obstacles to challenge even the best slots car racer. The tracks are well presented but are rather bland in their design with little variety outside of the course design themselves.
Playing through all other 18 tracks across the 3 difficulty levels will keep you occupied for a little while and even once that’s completed you’ll be able to set about building your own.
The track builder is pretty easy to use. Available pieces are presented via a scroll bar on the left of the screen and the highlighted piece will be place on the end of the track each time you hit the build button. Again with a large amount of realism the difficulty in the track builder just like in real life, is joining the track together at the end. While you can save and play any track regardless of whether you have joined the two ends together to complete a loop if you haven’t joined them the race will be pretty short as your slot cars career off the end of the track. It would be nice if it was possible to auto-complete the track where the application would join the two ends of the track together for you.
While the track editor is fun and offers limitless track opportunities the inability to share your tracks with other players and subsequently import other players tracks limits its ultimate appeal.
There is also no multi-player option, neither locally or online, which again limits the long term appeal of High Tech Racing.
The price point of $2.99 suggests a high quality game with many options however it never really reaches those heights and ultimately left me feeling a little short-changed. If some of HTR’s failings are addressed in future updates especially a multi-player option and the ability to share tracks High Tech Racing could be a fun and challenging addition to your game collection on your iPhone/iPod Touch.
Price: $2.99 (iTunes Store)
Category: Games
Released: Jun 24, 2010
Version: 1.0
Size: 34.5 MB
Language: English
Seller: Signature Devices, Inc
© Graffiti Entertainment
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later.