VS. Racing for iPhone is the first game from Maciek Drejak Labs and is a top down racer which reminds me of the old school classic Super Sprint.
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
Back in the day when my game console of choice was my trusty Commodore 64 computer one of the favourite games I would play was Super Sprint, a 2D top down racer that was as simplistic as they come yet had an addictive game-play that kept me coming back for more. And it was this game that instantly came to mind when I loaded Racing Mania HD for my latest gaming machine my Apple iPad.
The style and structure of the two are pretty similar. Both are top down racers with tiny cars and you can also upgrade and repair your vehicle as you progress through the 15 different tracks. It’s really as simple as that, however that’s no bad thing and while I still have a soft spot for the retro game Racing Mania HD is a fun little distraction too.
The game can be played in both single player mode and against a friend via the local network. The single player mode is split into Arcade and Practice modes with the 15 tracks only being able to played in Practice Mode after they’ve been unlocked in Arcade mode.
There are three control options to choose between, all of them use an accelerator and a break button on the right side of the screen while you get to choose your how you steer your vehicle from the option of a steering wheel, left and right arrows and the third option of using the accelerometer. All of them have there benefits but after playing with each of them for a while I settled on the left and right arrows as offering the best solution for me.
When launching the game you first need to choose your vehicle whether it’s a sleek hatch back, beach buggy, SUV or mini car there is something for everyone and while the differances between them are all pretty small they do all have there own stats which will impact on how you race to a lesser or greater extent.
Each car can additionally be upgraded for quicker acceleration or a higher top speed from your bank account that gets increased depending on your success and the 3 cash coins you can pick up during each race.
Adding to the fun is the fact that you race each track against 10 other mini cars creating a frantic 3 laps of action at high speed. The speed of the game is really affective and you mini car will appear to be zooming round at great speed and that’s even before you’ve started increasing the cars stats as you move through the tracks.
Talking of tracks when you start the game you get 5 different types of track to race around and it appears that the variety may continue into the next 10 too, however after the initial five there are two additional track styles with five course for each of them. The 5 night tracks are dark and moody and while the headlights of your mini cars look good you luckily don’t have to rely on them to see where you are going and the final 5 tracks are like high speed futuristic race tracks where the speed is cranked up once more.
The key to success in Racing Mania HD is anticipating the corners and, if you can do it, not taking your finger off of the accelerator as you do. This will take a while to do especially as the tracks get more twisty and narrow. Hitting the sides or going off track will be punished and as you try to maneuver your car out of a ditch, tree or barrier you may find the other 9 cars speeding past you to take the chequered flag.
There is a local high score table to track your best scores and the local network multi-player mode definitely adds additional value to the game but I did find it relativity easy to complete the 15 tracks in under an hour. I still think that I will come back to the game but a future update to add more tracks, achievements and especially an online multi player mode would make this fun 2D racer into a long term keeper.
Pros
Cons
Price: $3.99 (iTunes Store)
Category: Games
Released: May 31, 2010
Reviewed Version: 1.0
Size: 135 MB
Language: English
Seller: Federico Bigliocca
© Dracoders
Requirements: Compatible with iPad. Requires iPhone OS 3.2 or later.