iPhone App Reviews

Posts Tagged ‘racing’

Speedway 2012

Michael (Admin) | Feb 8, 2012 Games

User rating:

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

Loading ...

Speedway 2012 ($1.99) by Caps Off

Available on iPhone & iPod Touch

Imagine you’ve got a motorcycle and you have a chance to race it around a dirt track. Sounds good, right? Now imagine that your bike can only make left turns. Uh… WTF? And welcome to Speedway 2012.

I understand why Caps Off decided to make this game’s motorcycles a left-turn-only deal. It makes for a simple control scheme, and it also allows for four different people to put four different fingers on a single device and race against each other. That’s all cool and whatnot, but this thing really takes some getting used to. Tap once to get your bike going, and from then on you tap and hold to make your left turns. It’s easy in theory, but after smashing into the wall 50,000 times it’s really gonna piss you off.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: racing

Mad Rush

Michael (Admin) | Nov 3, 2011 Games

User rating:

(3 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)

Loading ...

Mad Rush ($.99) by Krivorukoff LLP

Available on iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad

There’s something pretty funny about launching a shrieking rabbit into the air! I’ve never done it in real life, but that’s pretty much what happens in every level of Mad Rush.

Mad Rush is a goofy little racing game where your rabbit hero, Noop, has to beat alien opponents to the top of an airborne obstacle course. In DieHard and Slalom races you gain acceleration by eating bugs of various colors, and in Nitro races you simply have to keep Noop in line with a path of upward-pointed arrows.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Games, racing

App Sale: Drag Racer: Pro Tuner

Tony Mei | Mar 6, 2010 App Sale Alert, Games

User rating:

(6 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5)

Loading ...

Drag Racer: Pro Tuner is on sale for free- normally $2.99
Pro Tuner is a simple drag racing game from XMG Studio Inc. that focuses on a plethora of enhancements you can add to your ride.

Dozens of cars, custom paint jobs and the ability to tweak everything from your brakes to gear ratio makes this an authentic, addictive racing RPG. Definitely worth a look if you are into the sport, but it’s easy to enjoy this lose yourself in this game for the pure joy of customizing and upgrading your car. Lots of in-app purchases unlock some certain bonuses in the game, but certainly aren’t necessary to enjoy it.

iTunes Link- Drag Racer: Pro Tuner

Tags: free, Games, racing

High Speed Chase 2.0

T.J. Brumfield | Jul 15, 2009 Games

User rating:

(2 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)

Loading ...

I kept playing this game all day long. I didn’t keep playing it because it was addictive. I kept playing it because I was convinced there was more here to see. I really wanted to like this game. I assumed perhaps that under various layers of onion there was something else besides another layer of onion. What I discovered is that I was playing a 99 cent app. This game isn’t terrible. Far from it. I just felt like somewhere there was a five dollar app hiding in here. I see massive potential. Instead there is a very simple, very repetitive game.

The first time I fired it up, I selected a mission and began to play. Or I attempted to play. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was supposed to do because the game made no effort to tell me. As I ran over orange power-ups, they said to swipe cars. So I did. I ran into cars, quickly died and started over. I did this a few times until I realized that swipe didn’t not mean swipe with my car. I can swipe the other car with my finger and move it out of the way when I get one of those power-ups. They are the only power-up in the game.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: $0.99, Games, racing, T. J. Brumfield

LightBike

Michael (Admin) | Apr 17, 2009 Games

User rating:

(2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)

Loading ...

LightBike is on sale for $.99 until the next update which will include an internet-based multiplayer mode

Anyone who’s seen the classic sci-fi geek movie Tron already knows about “lightcycles” and how unbelievably cool they are. For the uninitiated, the most memorable scene in Tron was where the good guys… one of whom was a very young Jeff Bridges… were battling the bad guys on these crazy motorcycles that would leave trails of light behind them. Run into someone’s light trail and your ass is toast, and if you can manage to steer your bike around the other guys in just the right way they’ll eventually be trapped and have no choice but to eat it.

LightBike is a pretty sweet game that does a surprisingly good job of reproducing the look and speed of the lightcycle battle in Tron. In single player mode, it’s you vs. three computer-controlled bikes and you get to choose from three difficulty levels. There’s also an options panel where you can control the size of the racing grid and several other factors that affect gameplay.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: $.99, 3D, racing

Q&F: Truth in 24

Michael (Admin) | Apr 17, 2009 Games, Quick & Free

User rating:

(3 votes, average: 3.33 out of 5)

Loading ...

Last fall I slammed Audi’s A4 Driving Challenge pretty hard for sucking in the worst possible way, and now they’re back with another racing title, Truth in 24, which is the iPhone companion to the Le Mans documentary of the same name.

Truth in 24 isn’t the greatest racing game I’ve ever played, but I have to admit it’s a lot better than the Audi A4 disaster! Steering is still controlled by accelerometer movement which has vastly improved since A4, but instead of a top-down view of the track, the game looks more like an updated version of the 80s arcade classic Pole Position.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: free, racing

Little Red Sled – 3D Racing

Swain Valasek | Mar 6, 2009 Games

User rating:

(3 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)

Loading ...

What a delightful surprise; here now is Little Red Sled – 3D Racing from Imangi Studios LLC. If this game doesn’t sleigh you (seriously you knew I would work that in) with its cuteness first, you’ll have a great time sledding down the old snowy slopes like it’s Christmas day every day.

To start, you select whether your young sledder will be Max or Maya then you pick your trail. At the beginning this is a linear progression but later more will open up at a time as you ‘level up’ and you can always go back and play any trail you’ve completed to try and best your score. In increasingly cute fasion, levelling up here consists of you gaining a new title such Cottontail or Treecrasher and the goals get more and more challenging. For example you may go from the simple task of just swooping up 6 gifts (by running over them) to needing 85k points in the next to gathering 20 gifts and 140k points in under 40 sec flat. Obstacles pop up (sometimes literally) to slow you down including trees, ramps, snow banks and OMG teh bunnies! There’s powerups too as some presents increase your speed or make you temporarily invincible. Each run is controlled very simply by rotating the phone to turn, touching the screen to brake and shaking to execute a roll when you catch air off a ramp (for bonus points). There’s no need for an acceleration control as this is handled automatically by the natural gravity of the situation. The game never gets you going so fast you feel like it’s Days of Thunder and never so challenging that you feel frustrated; it’s basically just right for a light and fun experience but is by no means a pushover at the higher skill levels.

I’ve no gripes with the game but I do have a suggestion. I’d love to see the game allow you to save and playback your favorite run on each trail for both the pure fun of it and to show others how you beat the trickier courses. Of course, this being the iPhone after all, it would always be great to see a global scoreboard.

Talk about endearing, special mention simply has to go to the original music score composed by the very adorable Natalia Luckyanova (‘nattylux’), check it:

Little Red Sled – 3D Racing might be the most wholesome game you’ll ever play and it goes without saying that it’s essential gear for any youngsters you have around (that you allow to play with your i<device> anyway). For the polish, presentation and gameplay it’s easily 1.5 thumbs up so throw in the highly original music and it’s a full 2 for an unpretentious, pure-hearted gaming experience with universal appeal. In a sort of existential way the game kind of reminds me of my little son, very genuine and (as yet) untainted by the nuttiness of the world.

Version reviewed – 1.0

Review platform – iPhone 3G 8GB 2.2.1

Global scoreboard – no

iTunes music support – yes

Lite version available – no

: A nice complement of options

: Soon to be airborne

: Ya baby, level up, I'm a Cottontail now and don't forget it

: Max's mad skillz in play

: You can always go back and try for a new personal best

: The trail map where new courses open up

: It's no Donnie Darko but it's still an evil bunneh, run!

Tags: $1.99, little red sled, racing, Swain Valasek

Big Fun Racing

Swain Valasek | Feb 14, 2009 Games

User rating:

(1 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)

Loading ...

One thing Big Fun Racing (BFR henceforth) from Decane will likely not do is make a great first impression. To be honest, what struck me on first play was the bland graphics and sluggish controls. However, perseverence turned to prosperity as I found there’s a fun little game lurking in here.

This isn’t exactly a racing game in the obvious sense (especially if you recall the classic ‘Big Red Racing’ from back in the day but oh I digress). The goal of BFR is to zip around a course and run over a target number of gold coins within a set time limit. So while you’re not racing against any other cars, you are competing against the clock (or your prior best time). The game is rendered completely in 3D which might be why the developer kept the graphics simple (must appease the framerate gods). You have 6 cars to pick from, 2 of which are unlockable ‘humbees’ to keep your interest and since they all have different handling and power you’re encouraged to try and pick the best ride for the track at hand. What you get in trade for the basic graphics is a decent physics model and various ramps that will have your vehicle flying through the air with the greatest of ease and this is the real strength of the game (more on that later). The controls consist of onscreen buttons for accelerate & decelerate/reverse and you rotate the phone to steer. As noted, they feel a bit muddy at first but after about 10 tries I got the feel of it and was able to settle into grabbing those coins without too much frustration. Of special note is the hoppin’ soundtrack which is a real highlight. There are 50 tracks included but you can download more online and at review time there were 2 available. More seem to be promised at regular intervals and hopefully more interesting as the 2 mentioned are very basic.

Back to the airborne thing, basically what makes the game is the ability to get major air off of ramps in your quest for coins. Difficult as the controls are to master and as many times as you WILL be retrying most tracks, the mental payoff for a winning run is definitely exciting. So much so that I pray the developer will add a replay mode to view your last run (and from different camera angles). Also, while you can quickly reset your car while there’s time on the clock, it takes too long to restart once it runs out so I hope that can be sped up in an update (did I mention you’ll be replaying the tracks a LOT?). Further, granted the cars are meant to have different handling traits but in general the game really needs an accelerometer sensitivity setting (or just control tweaks in that regardl) since I often had to rotate the phone so aggressively that I temporarily lost visual immersion.

Bottom line here is the game deserves more patience than some folks seem to be giving it out on the app store and other reviews; it’s definitely fun if you give it some time. A little spit and polish for the (hopefully soon) next update will make this a great little arcade runabout and I give special kudos to any developer with the moxie to pull off a playable game on the iPhone in full 3D (except Gameloft but they use magic pixie dust so I can’t count them :lol: