148apps rating note – Over too soon

There was once a time when sliding a virtual race car around a track’s corners was seen as a sure fire way to increase your laps times; however, somewhere between The Fast and the Furious movies and a progression in physics development, it became the right thing to do – many video games will now reward you for “drifting” around a corner and that’s certainly the case with Drift Mania Championship.

Designed in partnership with the Drift Mania Canadian Championship, this particular game sees you participating in the only motorsport that isn’t won by crossing the finish line first. Instead, your job is to impress the judges with your rubber melting, tyre screeching drifting abilities – it’s nicely demonstrated during the games’ opening video sequence. A “real life” video montage taken from the championship gets you raring to rev your engine, with footage of speeding cars in dangerously close proximity to one another. Of course, there’s also a few scantily clad women hanging around the race track – which for some reason have become infinitely intertwined within the world of fast cars.

Once the video’s over, you’ll reach the main menu screen, with two options as far as playing the game is concerned, Drift or Practice – I’d definitely recommend you pick the latter on your first play as these cars can be a little tricky to handle. You’ll soon become accustomed to their tendencies for driving sideways, though, and will be moving onto the real deal in no time. In terms of actually controlling the car; tilting your device will steer, a button on your left thumb applies the handbrake and a variable bar on the right controls the throttle. This method of acceleration is much appreciated, with many iPhone racers adopting either an auto-accelerate or single button setup. It’s extremely helpful in this scenario to have full control over just how fast your car is travelling.

Once you’ve familiarised yourself with the controls, it’s time to take on the championship. To begin with, you’ll have only one car and one circuit at your disposal, but as you improve your scores and achieve podium finishes, more will be unlocked. To do just that, you’ll be required to complete a number of laps whilst earning as many points as you can. Points are, quite obviously, awarded for drifting around corners; being marked for speed, style and precision. You’ll also gain extra points for combos and drifting in bonus zones. The target scores seemed unachievable during my very first round, but it really wasn’t long at all before I surpassed them, leaving me with better cars and an even higher score. It was at this point that I began to wish there was more than three circuits to race on.

Ultimately, that was a feeling I got several times whilst playing Drift Mania – there simply wasn’t enough of it. As far as the look and feel of the gameplay itself goes, there’s not an awful lot to complain about. The inclusion of a couple of songs from upcoming bands was also a nice little touch. But, it would have been even nicer if there’d been a few more circuits, perhaps a different game mode or two and even maybe some more songs. It’s a nice little racer and a fresh alternative to simply crossing the line first – unfortunately, it just doesn’t last.

Developer/Publisher: No Can Win
Genre: Racing
Price: $1.99
Acquired: Review Copy Provided
Review Platform: iPad and iPhone 3G
Verdict: An interesting challenging throwback concept.
Pros: The graphic style and gameplay are great throwbacks to 8-bit days;  OpenFeint support; random level layouts mean that if you come across a frustrating level, you can just generate a new one…
Cons: …but it also means that there aren’t a lot of particularly definitive levels, and you can’t save or share a level that you enjoy.

Cubed Rally Racer sets out with a goal – to combine the isometric racing gameplay of games like R.C. Pro-Am, Rock ‘n Roll Racing, and the iPhone’s Horror Racing with the obstacle-avoidance and generated levels of games like Canabalt, with a quirky, whimsical blocky style. It’s an intriguing combination that produces fun moments, but it still feels like it could use some tweaking to make it perfect, and it will not likely win over anyone who doesn’t like the way isometric racers control, as a large part of its challenge is based off of mastery of its loose turning controls.

Cubed Rally Racer is not a racing game in the traditional sense – it’s sort of a time trial where you’re trying to get to the end of the course as quickly as possible, but you are the only one on the track, and your opponents are the track layouts including tight turns and narrow pathways, obstacles the game puts in your way from concrete tunnels and cows, and your fuel supply, which you must replenish by picking up fuel cans scattered across the track.

Cubed Rally Racer’s tracks are set up in a unique way – it’s composed of level-based challenges, but the levels are randomly based. What you will notice is that the levels are based off of a random arrangement of a collection of track segments with obstacles and fuel can placements. As you progress through the game, you notice that the tracks get longer and longer, incorporating more of the segments into more challenging tracks. Now, what you can do if you come across a particularly challenging track setup, you can generate a new track altogether, but there are no guarantees that it will be any easier.

The randomness brings up two chief concerns: one, as you progress through the game, it really just becomes the same challenges but in different orders. It’s all the same track sections, you just don’t really know what’s coming until you see it, but your strategies are largely the same as fuel cans appear in the same places as well. Second, if you race on a particularly interesting course, you have no way of saving it or going back to it. Thus, while you can challenge people via OpenFeint, all you’re doing is challenging them to beat your high score, not to beat your score on a particular track. It takes a little bit of the punch out of the leaderboards as well – all you’re doing is competing for a nebulous high score instead of a specific one.

Cubed Rally Racer has a sense of whimsy and ludicrosity about it – I mean, your obstacles do include cows that run around, and gophers that pop out of the ground. But there’s just something simple and funny about the way that your pixelated, blocky rally car will fall to oblivion, or fall just short of a jump, bounce off of the ledge to its demise, or the way that your car explodes into a million pieces because a gopher popped up from under it. It’s the simplicity of the graphics, and just the way that the game carries itself that even failure has a sense of levity to it.

Now, the controls of Cubed Rally Racer are where your enjoyment of the game will in many ways be determined. The steering ratio of the controls are very loose, so holding down in a direction for just a little bit will turn you very far in that direction – tapping quickly will serve you far better for making turns, as you will quickly learn. Navigating around obstacles is a bit of a challenge too, as you have no brake, so sometimes if an obstacle pops up out of nowhere, you’ll just have to pray that you can redirect your velocity in a different direction quickly enough, or steer around it. There’s not really a problem with the virtual buttons on the screen on the iPhone, but they’re kind of large when playing in 2X mode on the iPad, and maybe even a tilt option would be interesting to see. Of course, I would love an update that made the game support the iPad in native mode as well.

Fighting the controls is part of the challenge of the game, and it’s enjoyable because of (or in spite of) the challenge they provide the game. When you beat a level, there is a feeling of accomplishment that is provided from having conquered your latest challenge. There is OpenFeint functionality, but it only tracks your highest score and total score, instead of anything deeper than that, but due to the random nature of the game, a score based on any particular race level wouldn’t be an apples to apples comparison of each player, necessarily.

What Cubed Rally Racer could really use would be the ability to share tracks you’ve played on. Perhaps this could be accomplished in a similar way that a URL shortener works – if you have a track design that you want to save to play later, it could get in contact with a server and have it be assigned a particular ID that you could then share with your friends, enemies, frienemies, lovers, haters, parole officers, et cetera. Also, an endless mode would be great. It could be technically feasible, as the game seems to load all track section data into memory when you start (which is much quicker on the iPad and presumably other 3GS-level hardware than on my iPhone 3G), so if the game could add sections on the fly, it could provide for a great new challenge that could bring people back to the game. But as someone who is not a programmer, both of these solutions may not be as feasible as I suppose them to be, so I can only assume and hope that these are in the works.

Cubed Rally Racer doesn’t quite reach the same heights of addictiveness as Canabalt, but its retro style and challenging randomly-generated gameplay could win it some fans. I recommend giving it a shot, although its loose controls may test your patience at times.

Publisher/Developer: EA Mobile
Genre: Racing
Price: $6.99
Acquired: Review Copy Provided
Verdict: For now, the racing game to beat on the iPhone.
Pros: Incredible graphics, smooth gameplay, decent value, deep
Cons: Multiplayer is an afterthought

I was pretty disappointed with the console and PC versions of Shift, but I think EA got it right on the iPhone.  If you want the skinny, the straight dope, here it is: this is the best looking, best playing racer on the iPhone, period.

And it moves good too!

NFS Shift puts Real Racing and Asphalt 5 in the rear view mirror, and puts it to the wood.  This is the best racer money can buy for the 3GS today.  EA seems to be real hit or miss on the platform, but this is an example of a hit.  The whole concept for the game revolves around the tried and true cash grind to buy and outfit new rides as you make your way through the circuit on your way to street race domination.  As a single player experience, there isn’t a better racer out there. This one is perfectly balanced and set up for bite size play or a long term sit down for when you are plugged into the wall socket.  The game is designed to recognize your progress just for racing in each event by awarding you with precision and aggression points.  Obviously, winning an event will progress your in-game profile quicker, and fill your pockets faster, but this method of reward makes every time you play worthwhile, and lessens the grind of character (racer) building.

The game within the game is this Driver Profile which tracks your performance and creates a outline of your driver that matches your tendencies.  Shift really shows off its depth (and value at 7 bucks) here and will keep you interested in your career as a street racer for awhile.  Since the game isn’t linear, you are free to jump around to different locales like Chicago, London, & Tokyo to keep your interest piqued.  28 events are available from drift battle and time trial to elimination races.  For those that just want to jump in, Shift also has ‘quick races’.  This is a complete and smartly presented package.

With 4 different POVs, you will definitely find one that works for you.

Graphically, I cannot stress enough how good this game looks.  Shift is a new standard for what the 3GS can do and shows that this device is pretty powerful when taken full advantage of.  The car models look clean and anti-aliased and the environments are as sharp and as detailed as some of the last generation console racers.  These screen-shots are a accurate indication of what you’ll see and it moves along at an almost perfect 30fps.  While there is some slight hitching in the frame-rate, it is nowhere near what you see in other games with less detail.

Asthe  icing on the cake, the controls are spot on.  With one of the best implementations of tilt controls (with horizon auto-level) I’ve seen, the game also sports 3 control types (rookie, professional, expert) and even custom.  Shift allows you to adjust the tilt sensitivity to your liking, but default works just fine.  You can choose to use steering assist, manual or automatic transmission, auto brake, and turn on or off the racing line.  The line helps you get acclimated to the control of the cars (and each one feels different) and get a feel for drifting through, and sometimes braking into, the turns.  4 different views, including behind the wheel and full screen, guarantees you can find one that works for you.

Didn't know you had on these sweet gloves did you?

Shift touts 20 different cars, as varied as a BMW M3 GT2 to a Pagani Zonda, which is more than enough to keep you playing to earn better rides.  18 tracks in 3 locations with enough visual variations and race types to keep you challenged are all presented with incredible fidelity, especially on a 3GS or second generation iPod Touch.  EA has deftly added OpenGL 2.0 optimizations that only work on the latest hardware, but the game is still playable on the first generation iron unlike some othere games >cough< Ridge Racer >cough<.  Excellent sound effects abound and for those not a fan of EA’s dee jaying, you can use your iPod music library. The game will automatically let you resume races when interrupted dropping you back at the starting line.  Mutliplayer consists of only wi-fi head to head and there are no leaderboards to speak of, but that is not what this game is about.  It’s about finding your driving style and running the career gauntlet.

One man's tailgating is another man's drafting.

Ultimately, EA took a high performance and well implemented racing engine and wrapped a smartly designed career mode that is guaranteed to impress even the most jaded of graphic whores and loyal of EA haters.  Shift is further proof that the iPhone is a legitimate gaming platform with a very bright future.

Publisher/Developer: Namco
Genre: Racing
Price: $2.99
Acquired: Review Copy Provided
Verdict: Not quite ready for prime time, especially on the 3G.
Pros: Has the look and sound of Ridge Racer..
Cons: …but not the controls or sense of speed.

Ouch.  Or as the French say, “Le Ouch”.  This is a tough one.  My love of the Ridge Racer series is much like my love of Namco’s other seminal series, Ace Combat.  Much like Ace Combat, I’ve bought just about every incarnation of the series and it’s proven to be a staple of the last three generations of console launches.  Maybe in an attempt to get this one out by Christmas, Namco decided they would deliver only half the game, and the half they left out was the part with the legendary Ridge Racer controls.

Don't let the good looks fool you.

Even though it pains me to do so, I cannot recommend this game.  It just isn’t ready for public consumption.  Clearly based upon the two fantastic PSP releases, you get a taste on your iPhone of the sights and sounds Ridge Racer fans have come to know and love over the years.  Why is this title so cheap, being available at launch for $2.99? Similar to their Ace Combat model, Namco is selling the game engine for a low cost and hoping you purchase the rest of the assets to get a complete title.  The jury is still out on if this tactic will be a success for Namco, but be forewarned, all you get here is 2 tracks (4 if you count mirror-images) and 2 car classes.  The problem here is that for $2.99, a competent control scheme does not exist in the app.  I would have gladly exchanged a track or car for quality car control.

Pretty close to the actual framerate.

I was actually optimistic when I first fired up the game and saw that not only did Namco employ the horizon auto-level feature that worked so well in Asphalt 5, but they added ticks along the bottom of the screen with an indicator letting you know how off center you were steering.  This sounds great in theory, but in practice the sensitivity is too dull.  No matter how much you crank it up, the game never shows that trademark handling the series is known for.  The worst part is that the drift mechanic, which admittedly is a bit too easy in Asphalt 5, is completely broken here.  You do have the choice between auto-accelerate and manual gas pedal, and manual makes drifting a bit easier, but drifting is the hallmark of Ridge Racer and greater care should have gone into its implementation.  Most users will become incredibly frustrated spinning out every time they try to drift around a corner.  While you can avoid the maneuver altogether and just slow down into turns, you won’t be able to earn any nitrous, which is crucial to enjoying the game and winning advanced races.

It's all downhill from here.

The other half of the half left out is speed.  At no time during the game do you get that famous sense of speed shown in Ridge Racers (PSP) or Ridge Racer 7.  If you do manage to gain some nitrous, when you trigger it, you go from slow to less slow.  The car never feels like it’s doing more than 50 MPH and the frame-rate stutters in corners and when other cars are jockeying for position on screen.  The game touts “optimized for 3GS, 3G coming soon”.   Someone needs to tell Namco they still need to optimize this game for the 3GS.  If it ran slow on the 3GS, I was curious what the ‘unoptimized’ code did on the 3G, so I dug my old one out.  Seriously, if you have a 3G, do not purchase under any circumstances, it runs at around 9 frames per second.  Seriously.

Here is where you go to complete the game.

Also missing is any career mode or multilayer, all you get is arcade mode, duel, and survival.  If you do find a way to control your car, you can get 6 more tracks for $2.99 and the class 5 vehicles for $1.99.   The familiar look of the game is, however, in tact.  The fictional makes and models you remember are here and the music you’ve come to either love or hate is in place.  Everything about the game screams Ridge Racer until it starts moving.  As is stands now, without a substantial update, Namco should be ashamed to call this game ‘Accelerated’.  This is more like Ridge Racer ‘Broken Down Waiting For AAA’.  The only good thing I can say is at least they didn’t forget Reiko.

Publisher/Developer: Gameloft
Genre: Racing
Price: $6.99
Acquired: Review Copy Provided
Verdict: A major improvement over Asphalt 4 and bodes well for Asphalt 6.
Pros: Horizon leveling controls, improved graphics, easy to use drift mechanic, fun to play
Cons: Framerate struggles, vaseline covered lens effect, Cop Chase

As a person who bought Asphalt 4 (for 10 bucks!) and felt it was a somewhat weak port, I wish I would have held out for Asphalt 5.  This feels much more like a native iPhone game, designed for the hardware from the ground up and it does everything it can to create a ‘Burnout meets Ridge Racer-like’ arcade experience on the go.

Fresh off the showroom floor.

First off, if you are looking for a racing sim, this ain’t it.  If you played Asphalt 4, then you already know the score.   This is an arcade racer  with a career mode added for a bit of longevity by earning cash and upgrading your sled.  These modes include: time trials, drift contests, duel mode, escape, cop chase and more.  The elimination mode where you take out a certain number of rivals gets a tad ridiculous when you’re in cop mode, but getting an appropriate vehicle (much like Burnout Paradise, where vehicle type changed the challenge level significantly) and overpowering them will send those boys in blue back to the donut shop fast.  There are plenty of cars to unlock, and they are real makes and models blessed by the manufacturer.  There are over 30 types including the Ferrari California, Lambo Murcielago LP, and Bugatti Veyron;  they even threw in a few bikes for good measure.  It’s like having your own Top Gear show and you get to play the Stig. Gameloft really packed a ton of kick-ass rides in this game.  Asphalt 5 also boasts 12 locales like Vegas, Aspen, and San Tropez.

The most noticeable change made from Asphalt 4 to Asphalt 5 is to the controls.  Much like Backbreaker, the devs realized that using the accelerometer to steer only really works with an ‘auto-leveling horizon’ feature.  While not as smooth of an implementation as Backbreaker, it helps tremendously to actually use this control type to help keep your ride on the road.  The standard touch and wheel controls are still here, but using the default accelerometer is the way to roll.  The car puts it to the floor on its own, you just steer, break, drift, and turbo.  By tapping the break once you enter drift mode and by tapping it again you level out.  While it is extremely unrealistic, and it feels like the whole game is just bouncing around the track with little damage, it adds a Ridge Racer drift element that make the game even more fun.  You can even move the camera back for a larger view of the action.

Bending corners.

The graphics, no doubt, will be the real selling point behind this game, as it really pushes the limits of the device.  Truth is, it’s not all perfect in eye-candy-land.  Even on my 3GS, the game did not feel as fluid as it should have and the frame rate really stuttered when there was a traffic jam around a corner.  The 3GS incorporates a graphical effect that doesn’t seem to appear on the older 3G hardware. There may have been a technical reason to add the ‘vaseline cam’, but I wish you could turn it off.  The whole game seems fuzzy and smudged; it’s not drastic but it’s enough to notice.  You may not be bothered by it, and chalk it up to style, but some will want a crisper experience.  Still, the game does look outstanding and the assets are modeled extremely well with beautifully colored environments.  Little touches like smoke from tires, snowflakes on the windshield, and the blur of neon really add to the game.  The camera will sweep through the track prior to the race, which shows off how impressive the work Gameloft has done here really is.  The track design is very well done and proves some time and work went into the design.  Like Burnout, there are shortcuts, jumps, and multiple paths that keep the replay value high.  Gameloft even added push notifications for game updates.  Overall, the presentation here is really top notch.

Where we're going, we don't need roads.

Like most of the latest big name releases, Asphalt 5 supports multi-player via Bluetooth (6 player local match) and Wi-Fi.  Global leaderboard domination is your goal and Gameloft has created a community site at asphalt-5.com where you can join the “Asphalt Academy”.  It’s not something everyone will even care about, but it is a testament to what you are getting for 7 bucks.  The game also uses an in-dash Alpine to create your own track list from your existing iPod collection.  Pretty slick.

How eclectic, and that's just the 'A' titles.

If you are even remotely a fan of arcade racers then I suggest you get this game right now.  If you felt burned by Asphalt 4, I am right there with you.  But this is where Gameloft should have started, and if they can get the engine more optimized, we could have a perfect arcade racing game with Asphalt 6.

Rally Master Pro has come to the iPhone and iPod touch in all its 3D glory. The press release has some exciting claims and this preview video looks amazing. Expect a full review from us soon but I just had to share this little tease with all of you.

Key Features:

• 27 courses in a variety of countries
• Improved graphics with vertex colouring and dynamic lighting (OpenGL ES 1.1)
• Dynamic 3D sound effects (OpenAL)
• Realistic 4-point driving physics
• 3D damage model
• Wide variety of weather conditions
• Mini-games
• Adrenaline mode
• Manual replay
• Configurable controls
• On-line high scores
• US $6.99 UK € 5.49

Developer/Publisher: Firemint
Genre: Racing
Price: $9.99
Verdict: An exceptional racing game for the iPhone.
Pros: Great graphics, great controls, CloudCell online leaderboard support, game runs smoothly, iPod playlist support.
Cons: …not really any that I can think of. It’s $9.99, which is pricey for iPhone games, but given the quality here, it’s hard for me to say that it’s a Con because the quality of the game is such that it’s worth the full price.

Firemint has had an early track record of success on the iPhone, starting with Flight Control, the game that did absolute gangbusters on the App Store, addicting seemingly everyone with an iPhone, and helping to inspire other successors in the now burgeoning path management genre. Firemint’s second game for the iPhone is Real Racing, and it appears as if Firemint are 2 for 2 when it comes to making masterpieces for the iPhone.

First thing that needs to be mentioned about Real Racing is that from a technical standpoint, how impressive the game is. The graphics are definitely the finest on the iPhone yet, the game looks fantastically sharp and runs exceptionally smooth. The in-game presentation is also great, with the default camera angle’s only HUD being a translucent display next to your car (and if you spin out of control, the HUD travels along with your car. Very cool.) – this minimalistic approach is refreshing design and is a very nice look for the game. The controls work well, although this really is to be expected nowadays from iPhone racing games, but Real Racing does not disappoint. The tilting to steer mechanic works well, with options for touch steering, and to swap between manual or automatic acceleration. You can also calibrate the accelerometer to your liking, and there’s a handy variable slider for brake assist, which lets the game automatically break around turns for you to help you stay in control, but as you get more used to the game, you’ll likely decrease the slider’s value to enable you to go faster around corners. The controls are just exceptional, and there’s little to complain about here.

What’s most interesting about Real Racing is that despite the title, the game plays much more similarly to racers like Ridge Racer than a simulation – that is, the game is very easy to control and get into. Don’t let the name scare you away if you’re looking for a more arcade racer-type experience, from what I played. As for the content, there are 4 main classes of vehicle – Hatchback, Sedan, Muscle, and Exotic, the main difference being that each class is faster and generally harder to control, but that’s likely due to the speed increase. You only get the Hatchback class to start with, and as you play through the Career mode, you start to unlock the later classes and new vehicles in the previous class. There are 12 main career events, 3 for each class of vehicle, but there are 3 different ranks to complete, which will help you unlock the later vehicles for your class. The game also has a Time Trial mode which lets you compete for the fastest lap time, with online leaderboard support via CloudCell, as well as a Quick Race mode. There’s also support for local wi-fi play for up to 6 players, and asynchronous multiplayer support with online leagues.

What I took away from playing Real Racing was that it was a sign of what iPhone gaming can be if taken to its maximum potential. This game is exceptionally polished, to borrow a cliched term, even compared to the most polished of iPhone games. Everything from the impressive graphics to the smooth engine, to CloudCell support, to even the iPhone OS 3.0 iPod playlist support is all exceptionally executed and the game proves to be well worth the $9.99 cost. If you’re going to pay $9.99 for any game on the iPhone, Real Racing is a fine candidate as there was definitely a maximum level of effort put into the game for the App Store’s maximum game price point. If you want a great racer for the iPhone, look no further than Real Racing.

PSP Go – “worst kept secret at E3:” will have no UMD, new Micro Memory Stick (M2), internal 16 G memory, SenseMe (music mood-based playlist maker) sliding face, no second analog stick. 3.8 inch screen, bluetooth capable. Looks slick, will come in at $249 US in October 2009.

New Games – Gran Turismo, Metal Gear Solid: PeaceWalker, Resident Evil on PSP. Also, LBP, SOCOM, Monster Hunter, Motor Storm, Harry Potter, and HANNAH MONTANA!

PSN – over 50 PS1 classics coming to PSN Store, including Final Fantasy 7

More to come as the day goes on. Look for analysis and news right here and at GamesAreEvil.com

Part of the new trinity of Need for Speed titles, Electronic Arts is aiming Nitro squarely at fans of over-the-top arcade racers, and as far as textual descriptions go – and considering how I’ve recently been soured by the franchise – well, dammit, it looks pretty thrilling. Stay tuned after the press release snippets and the forced early morning wit for some screenies and trailer!

NITRO delivers the fun and exhilaration of high-speed racing, combining the franchise’s trademark attitude and car culture with deep and thrilling gameplay. With the NDS, battle through the mayhem of aggressive cops, take corners at 150 mph, and own the competition on extreme tracks. Boasting a wholly unique look and feel, Need for Speed NITRO thrusts gamers into an exciting flurry of over-the-top fun, where each race track features big air jumps, smackable objects, shortcuts and more!

Pray tell, what does “smackable” entail exactly? Sounds like another PR buzz word Webster’s hasn’t recognized yet (see: Downloadable, Verticality)

In the heat of adrenaline-pumping competition, gamers must take risks on the road to build up Nitro boost and use it at the right moment to leave their rivals in the dust. They must also be ready to escape relentless cops with a propensity for road blocks. Players who activate their Heroic Driving moves at the perfect time can pull off over the top evasive tricks, outsmarting determined law enforcement in the process.

YES, EA, YES! I’m sick of the realism! Hopefully they’ve programmed lots of determination into the AI-driven law enforcement, because those coppers are totally smackable.

The list of over-the-top’edness continues in the form of copied & pasted bullet points (hang in there, the assets are coming!):

• Extreme Tracks— From the streets to the off-road to unexpected places like a rollercoaster, each track will feature big air jumps, smackable objects, shortcuts and more.
• Battle to the Finish Line — Whatever the position in the race, players can still build up their nitro boost and use it at the perfect moment to take the lead. However, they can also be taken out by the cops at any time. Anything can happen right to the very last second.
• Heroic Driving – Use the Nitro meter to dodge the cops or overtake rivals by triggering spectacular Heroic Driving Moves like jumping over cars or driving on two wheels.
• Pick and Personalize Rides — Choose from over 30 licensed cars, ranging from modern to classic to exotics to tuner. Then customize them with pre-set colors and images.
• Tag the World — Attach a graphic style to each car and rely on racing finesse to hit triggers scattered on the road. Once activated, the world will be marked with the unique graphic style, loudly proclaiming racing excellence.
• Nitro-Charged Multiplayer— With WiFi, up to four players can take part in intense races, battling it out for victory. Even if they don’t own the game, several tracks, cars and game modes can still be shared.
• World Tour Campaign — Take part in street races across six cities throughout the world, including Cairo and Dubai, to unlock new cars, tracks and challenges.

All this in a DS racing title? EA, if you pull off the gameplay I’ll sing this one to the heavens. Or at least our readers. Ok gang, here’s some screenies and the first NITRO Trailer!

Developer/Publisher: Firemint/i-Play
Price: $5.99
Verdict: Buy it, one of the finest racing games on the iPhone, licensed or not.
Pros: Runs impressively smooth, controls well, awesome YouTube replay feature
Cons: Drift races blow chunks.

The one genre that has really excelled so far on the iPhone has really been the racing genre, thanks to the accelerometer making steering a working control concept. Also successful have been licensed titles, because there’s no better way to get attention on the mosh pit that is the App Store than to have a big name behind you to push your title. Fast and Furious, then, is like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, delicious.

Fast & Furious purports itself to be based on the storyline of the recent movie – I haven’t seen it, so I can’t prove it for myself, but the story mode has you globe-hopping, meeting interesting people – and then racing them, sometimes for their car’s pink slips (secret: if you’re about to lose a pink slip race, then quit or restart the race. No lost cars!) There are various types of races, from standard “if you ain’t first, you’re last” races to drag races where you have to time your gear shifting to win, and races with quick-time events that you have to complete as they pop up in order to advance. The traditional races were the most fun to me, but all of the modes are enjoyable, with maybe the exception of drift races, where it feels like you just have no control of your car throughout the whole race, and these were often the hardest races to beat in the game. Also annoying about the Drift races is the requirement for a certain number of points accrued during the race for drifting – I won a race, was ready to celebrate my achievement only to have my success crushed beneath me thanks to me not realizing I had to get 10000 points drifting. And swerving around like a maniac during a race is no way to win it, even if the other cars are as suspension-impaired as you are. It’s a minor flaw on a game that otherwise plays remarkably well. The Pursuit and Evade modes are fun stuff, too – Pursuit has you chasing down and taking out enemy vehicles before they reach the finish line, and Evade is vice versa. Fun stuff.

The Story mode forms the meat of the game as you’re given several challenges per locale to complete in order to advance. The Quick Race allows you to play each game mode in a single pick-up-and-play race, but you can’t change anything like the level your race on or your car, so it’s kind of weird. There’s local Wi-Fi play, and then there’s the game’s coolest feature – the online mode. It’s not an online versus mode, but what it does is so much cooler. There are challenges for each scenario that you’ve unlocked in Story Mode, and you connect to the internet and you compete for fastest times and whatnot. Yeah yeah yeah, it’s nothing new in that regard…but you can save and upload your replays to YouTube. It’s one of the coolest features in a game in a while – check the video out below.

Folks, this is potentially groundbreaking stuff – not to mention just darn cool. You create an account on CloudCell, you upload your replays to your account, then on the web you start to process the replay, and it will soon appear as a YouTube video. Just as simple as that. I still can’t get over how cool this feature is.

The game is an overall impressive package – the graphics are incredible for the system – it runs consistently smooth and the quality of the graphics are on par with the PSP Burnout games. The controls are standard tilt controls for steering, and they work well except for in the drift races where the control gets nigh-impossible, but this may be as much due to the nature of the mode than any problem with the controls. There’s just one thing that was bugging me, though – Fast and Furious is certainly impressive for the platform, and it’s not a bad game by any standard, no. The only problem with it is that I got this sensation at times that despite my positive impressions, that would it really be great if it wasn’t an iPhone game? Would I still be as impressed if it was a DS or PSP game with the same gameplay? I don’t think my expectations would be the same, and that’s what made this review surprisingly hard to write – I hit a brick wall when trying to write this due to this issue. It’s not that the game was bad and I didn’t want to play it, just the opposite, but it was hard to formulate my true feelings on this game. There’s an appreciation for the art, for the work that went into the game more than the actual game itself – that’s why I enjoyed it, for the overlying circumstances behind it moreso than the game itself. This game was good for the iPhone, and that it was a quality game for the iPhone was what impressed me, that was what hooked me more than just what the package brought by itself. It’s iPhone great, but is it anything more than that? It’s hard for me to answer that question. I enjoyed the game, but it presented an interesting dilemma – it’s great in context of the system it’s on, but I just don’t know if it’d be great on another system.

I do recommend it though, any meta-gaming angst aside. Those were just thoughts that I had to get out, and I do think that those thoughts are worth saying. (Disagree? There’s a handy comment box below. Ream me if you must.) It is games like this that show what the iPhone can do – bringing games close to, if not right at, the level of quality we expect from DS/PSP games on the iPhone platform. It’s one of the finest racing games for the iPhone out there, and does bring a lot to the table. If you want a great racing game for the iPhone, look no further. Buy it, even if you’re no Vin Diesel fan.