Earlier this month Xpect Games released their ambitious post-apocalyptic racing game Race After 1977 [$2.99] into the App Store. After a long development cycle and many months of anticipation for the game, Race After 1977 ultimately left us disappointed with its poor technical performance and awkward feeling physics. The frame rate was horribly choppy and the handling of the vehicles felt floaty and unnatural, especially when coming into contact with other cars or the environment. Braking was also nearly unusable, as just a quick tap on the brakes would bring your car to a screeching halt rather than send you into a nice drift around a corner, letting the rest of the racers zoom on by while you sat and stared.
It was really unfortunate too, as Race After 1977 had a really appealing style and great visuals. The tracks had a wonderful open world feel to them, with multiple pathways, shortcuts, and plenty of jumps to launch from. The 9 available vehicles looked like they were ripped straight from a Mad Max movie, and each had its own unique attributes and handling. The environments had an authentic post-apocalypse feel, and aside from some noticeable pop-in, were impressively expansive. There really was a great game in here somewhere, but the initial flaws in Race After 1977 prevented anyone from really seeing it.
Xpect quickly took the negative feedback to heart, and has spent the last few weeks righting the wrongs that came in the release version. Today the fruits of that effort are available as an update to Race After 1977, and for the most part they’ve done an excellent job of whipping the game into shape. The frame rate is now 10 times better than before, though I do still get the occasional hiccup. These don’t detract from the gameplay too much though, and the game runs smoothly the majority of the time allowing me to concentrate on the race rather than compensate for dropped frames.
An even bigger improvement than the frame rate is the physics system which has undergone some serious tweaking. Cars now feel like they have a much more natural weight and are actually driving on the game’s terrain rather than just floating above it. Running into other cars or objects also feels more how it should, though it can still be a bit wonky at times. Finally, braking has been tuned nicely, and it’s much easier to send your car into a drift around tight corners without accidentally coming to a complete stop.
I don’t want to overstate the effect of this latest update, as there is still plenty of room for further improvement in Race After 1977. Any of the touch control options work great but the tilt controls still feel pretty unusable to me. I’d like the occasional hiccups in the frame rate to get ironed out even further, and it would be wonderful if the pop-in of certain track elements could be fixed. But it’s a really thin line between frustrating and fun in a game, and what Xpect has done with this update is taken a game that was initially frustrating and a chore to play and turned it into the largely enjoyable experience that it was meant to be. I’m having a blast playing through the campaign in the game now, whereas before I could only make it through a few races before giving up in frustration.
If you initially tried out Race After 1977 and had similar negative feelings towards it, make sure and update the game and give it another try. You can also check out the impressions from members in our forums for more opinions. Xpect seems committed to making Race After 1977 a great experience for its players, and this first update is a huge step in the right direction. The next planned update will add universal iPad support and special enhancements for the iPad 2, and I’m now looking forward to checking that out when it hits.
