Seven iPhone Racing Games Compared
posted September 26th, 2008 7:48 AM EDT by blakespot in News, ReviewsThe Boston Herald recently took a brief look at seven iPhone racers in the App Store.
- Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D [$5.99 App Store] [review]
- Cro-Mag Rally [$1.99 App Store] [review]
- Asphalt 4 [$9.99 App Store] [review]
- Raging Thunder [$7.99 App Store] [review]
- GTS World Racing [$7.99 App Store] [review]
- Moto Chaser [$4.99 App Store] [review]
- Audi A4 [Free App Store]
The review includes a mix of cart racers, more traditional racing titles, and even the dubious, overhead perspective Audi A4.
The reviewer grades each title and boils the list down to three winners: Asphalt 4 and Moto Chaser for adults and Crash Bandikoot Nitro Kart 3D for younger players.
September 26th, 2008 at 7:59 am
now audi is pretty good with the update
September 26th, 2008 at 8:31 am
Well, I prefer Moto Chaser, Asphalt 4 and Raging Thunder over the others. I’d love to have something like Mario Kart, but Nitro Kart 3D has way too much jerking for me to be enjoyable.
September 26th, 2008 at 8:49 am
@ Oliver: Here I thought I was the only one who found Nitro Kart’s framerate to be unacceptably low - the stuttering is quite annoying, even with sound disabled. I don’t notice that problem so much with either Asphalt4 or R.Thunder …
September 26th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Still thing Cro-mag is much better than Nitro Kart 3D; better graphics, sound and framerate. I admit I thought it was a bit weird there’s no story/challenge mode to the game, and doubly surprised they haven’t added one!
I even prefer GTS World Racing to Asphalt 4.
Bah, what do they know..
September 26th, 2008 at 9:17 am
I have two games which I really don’t wanna play because of framerate issues: ZEN Rollercoaster and Nitro Kart. If Nitro Kart would fix the framerate issues when more karts are on the screen and if they would keep the horizon flat while tilting, it would be a great game. But currently, I just can’t enjoy it.
Many other games, which are graphic intense, work without problems, so it’s definitely broken inside these games.
But as I read in nearly all reviews, the ppl love Nitro Kart and they have not framerate issues. Or they don’t seen them :).
September 26th, 2008 at 9:19 am
The GTS thing is interesting. I really don’t like how they use the accelerometer, because it reacts after a while. Most people seem to have no problem with this, but when I tilt the phone just a little bit, I want my car to tilt a little bit as well.
September 26th, 2008 at 10:23 am
> I have two games which I really don’t wanna play because of framerate issues: ZEN Rollercoaster and Nitro Kart.
FWIW I saw posted somewhere that ZEN Rollercoaster is working on improving framerate. That’s what kept me from buying, so I’ll be watching for new reviews.
September 26th, 2008 at 10:49 am
Take another look at ZEN, I found that after the last update things were much smoother.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:05 am
I took a look at it. I had to - after 2.1 the graphics where completely gone ;). Graphics now did reappear, but the framerate is unchanged.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Hey guys, we’re thrilled that Moto Chaser has received such a great response from people. Just an FYI, we cut the price to $4.99.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:36 am
Brian, after making the game a bit easier with one of the last updates Moto Chaser got me :). I think I like Raging Thunder so much because the driving feels a bit like Moto Chaser :).
Now we are waiting for Wingnuts 2!!
September 26th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
GTS reminds me of cruis’n'usa somehow…
i have that and both crash and moto chaser.
i might get asphalt, but i don’t know if i should wait for need for speed (release in november?)
September 26th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
I agree with the first part. Asphalt 4 and MotoChaser are my favorites. Motochaser could have some improvements, like opponents, but the game feels so fast fast when you play it’s hard to not have fun.
Asphalt could feel a bit faster. I find it hard to believe I’m moving at 200 mph when it looks like 50 or 60. It’s still a blast to play though, especially the motorcycles. Everyone always over looks those. The bikes make the game for me. No matter what cars I get, I always go back to the Ducatti Monster (in real life, those are amazing bikes… though they cost like $11,000 or something, not $80,000 or whatever the game says).
September 28th, 2008 at 5:15 am
Audi A4 made the list but Pole Position did not?
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:47 am
All Apple has to do is increase the hardware specs on the next iPhone/iPod Touch models. Put in a faster GPU. Apple has the capability of designing it’s own low-power GPU that won’t be available on any other platform. There’s always the possibility that Apple could just spin off a dedicated game machine, though I doubt that’s likely since it would add another product to it’s lineup and I don’t think Apple would do that unless it removes the iPod Classic.
Right now, Apple doesn’t need to compete head to head with the DS and PSP. the iPhone/iPod Touch are making decent money in their own little niche and as the user base goes up, so does the income.
October 14th, 2008 at 8:55 am
They just dropped the price on Raging Thunder with 50%