If you press the gold bar (level thing) it brings up your profile use the settings tab on the left side and you can change all the defaults. There's also traction control
Wow - what a difference on the platforms. I tried this on the iPad Mini and it's horrible, so difficult to control, but on my iPhone 5 it's like a different game - much better. A pity because I'd far rather play it on the iPad.
Timers, in a full-price premium racer? I'm speechless. I was really hoping they'd clean it up during the soft launch and make sure everything was tight and tested across all hardware. Looks like I'll wait for at least a few updates now. Ugh.
Heh, I've actually now got them all as high as they'll go, and with acceleration boosts every race have finally managed to win a couple of times. Dunno what it is, I'm nowhere near this helpless in RR3. Maybe I'll try turning them off, too, see if that improves anything further.
After reading all the negative comments, I recommend you all try Asphalt 8 if you haven't already. Sure it's pure arcade and the opposite of a racing sim, but physics are great and you'll sure get more out of your buck than what you got for this one. Btw, thanks for letting me know that things aren't as they look.
+1 +1 +1 Asphalt 8: Airborne seems to be the best action/arcade racer in town. The amount of content is immense! I recently unlocked Season 6 (of 8) in the career mode without spending any additional real money and without grinding. And for some local friends and me personally the best feature is the local multiplayer mode. Does 2KD offer something like this?
Game Impressions Asphalt is clearly the best Arcade racer on the AppStore. This is NOT an arcade racer. The physics are very sim-like on par with Gran Turismo or Forza. Driving well requires some things many phone gamers are in short supply of, patience and application. This is not play on the train during your commute game. The menu system is awful beyond words. Every thing you need is there, but you need to go look for it. The assists are very intrusive and much of what people are calling "rubbish controls" is a combination of the sim handling, with the draconian assists which they have not adjusted because they are hidden in the Player Profile menus. I can't imagine playing this with steering assists and brake assists on Max, but that is the default until you go change them. Don't try to play on low end devices even if they are supported. iPad mini and iPad 2 are barely playable and not fun at all. On my iPad 4 and roomie's iPhone 5 it stellar. I can't speak yet to the IAP's as I have not been called on to make any. I have not had to wait to play any thing, nor been forced to even buy a car with the In game currency (stars) or premium currency (coins). Only the one race Boosts which I don't use other than the one free one they make you try. Customization is deeper and more feature filled than any racing game on the AppStore to date. The environments clearly show the developer, Lucid, had staff for the late, great Bizarre Creations. They made Metropolis Street Racer on Dreamcast, and the awesome Project Gotham Racing series before being bought out, and sucked dry by Activision. Graphically it is less impressive than both Real Racing 3, and Asphalt 8. Too much processor horsepower is devoted to physics I suspect. Pure arcade games have always looks better than sims on every platform, and RR3 really is just an outstanding program in every respect. It has some annoying bugs. Some really annoying features like being prompted over and over to use the RaceFace customization but then told "you do not meet the minimum requirements to use all 2K Drive features". The unskippable, and LONG, cutscenes intros grate on me. In all, I am really having fun with this and am very happy with paying $6.99 for it. But is not recommended for everyone. It is NOT a pick up and play arcade racer. Comparing it to Asphalt is like comparing Battlefield 3 to Duke Nukem 3d. Both great games, not the same thing just because they are both shooters. 2K and Lucid need to do some patching and updating. I am quite confident based on 2K's track record on the AppStore that they will. We will see.
^ Thanks for your very good review, Werechihuahua. I am always very reluctant when it comes to simulators because they feel like a slow motion study for me compared to arcade racers. I tried them all but there is not enough challenge for me (exception: Colin McRae Rally; like Asphalt there are lots of challenges inside requiring absolute precise reactions, steering, braking and accelerating—even more real than reality). Is there a local multiplayer option in 2KD? (Two or more iOS devices in the same race connected via WiFi and/or Bluetooth.) Thanks in advance for enlightening.
Well written. This definitely gets better the more time you spend with it, I am really enjoying the handling now for the most part. It is definitely a pretty deep game. Rough around the edges, most glaringly the menu.. Too much going on there. I think this will keep getting better and better.
Assists on max is not the default; they are one step off the top to begin with. You can't seem to replay races, which annoys me (I go back and automatically get the next difficulty level, and promptly lose horribly) - I would like to try the same race with assists on or off to really see what effect it has on my performance. I am willing to admit that this is a game which needs some work to get the most out of it, although I don't think it's some hidden gem which only the smartest iOS gamers will appreciate, etc. either. As far as I'm concerned if a game actively turns me off in the opening few hours, that may not necessarily mean there's no fun to be had, but it still isn't a good thing under any circumstances. It has nothing to do with difficulty or the time the game requires you to put in or anything like that - Demon's/Dark Souls are clearly quality from the first few minutes. Oh, and deepest customisation on the App Store to date? Uh, what am I missing? The only practical customisation I see so far is the pre-set upgrade packs - other than that it's just rims, paint and interior decoration, none of which means anything to me.
Quick First Try I tried it on iPad 3. I am a racing-sim enthusiast. So the RR series is my prime choice, but I am sick of RR3 lately. Graphics are okay, not outstanding. Menus are not that bad, they could gain from a revamp, but we can get used to it. Repair timers are no issues at all. They can be instantly done by paying with stars. And you will get a lot of stars. So, no pay wall here. To buy cars you'll need coins. To upgrade cars you'll need coins. You get coins every time you level up. What I like compared to RR3, is the possibility to get coins outside of the single player campaign. The daily challenge will award you 2 coins just to participate in it, 10 coins to finish in the first 1000, and 3 coins every time you beat a friend! So get in there and get your daily coins, cheaply! Oh! and if you don't yet own the car required for the challenge, you are offered to drive the stock version of it free, without any repair cost or timer! Also, you race against cars in challenges, but also against your friend's ghost. So, if you beat him, you really beat him, not some slowed-down version of his bot. Controls: this is not obvious at first try. I removed all assists. The one thing I hate most is that the break has no sensitivity, it's like you always hit the brakes 100% and then the car always drifts. So, I set it all to full manual, except I leave ABS on. This gives me most of the controls in my hands, without the excessive sliding. I still hit the wall though if I brake too late. One thing I absolutely love with the controls is that you can manual shift gears! Finally! Could it be real without it? I suck at it because I need to get used to it, but it's more fun that way, or at least I feel like I have a bit more control over the car. I found that the automatic shifting is not efficient, you are left too long at the max RPM before the computer changes gear. Haven't tried to OMP yet. IAP: - Founders pack: at 10$ bucks for 100 coins, 5000 stars, and access to 25+ cars is inviting. But in less than 2 hours I gained 60 coins (with challenges), 10000+ stars, and I figured that you don't get any cars with the pack, it's just that you have enough coins to buy any car you want. So it may be a little trap... - you can buy stars with coins (you should not run out of stars) - you can buy coins with real cash (you should not need to if you compete in the challenges) Oh! and I hate the driver faces. Anyway... the game looks like a decent alternative to RR3 in terms of gameplay. It looks like it needs time to get used to the controls. Time will tell.
I didnt read anything yet. What is "Race Face" about anyway, am i able to wrap on an orgasm pic from the net on one of those heads?
Was so happy to see it become a premium experience until I realized that rather than shifting its focus to be paid, they just broke the economy and had done with it. You earn stars at a massive rate now, which renders repairs and boosts meaningless, and that's all you can spend stars on, while coins come so slowly that hours in I've only got two clangers to drive in. The reward loop is sooooo slow and grindy. Why not have stars be your sole means of progression and car purchase, like Kudos in PGR? Handling has its moments but feels like its a joypad model forced to touch, not like the built from the ground up approach to RR3. PGR was all about delicate throttle control and that can't be done here. The events are varied but progression so slow (next race in London. Again?). It really feels rather than having me pay for a full experience, 2K still have their hands out. It's gone from gross freemium to gross paymium.
I've read the whole thread and didn't want to post impressions until I had played some more. I love my driving games so wanted to give it some time before stating this and that. I would say up front that all my comments are based on playing on iPad 4. I tried on ipad mini and its not working well there. Same problem as Colin McRae before they optimised it in that it 'forgets' you are accelerating when it gets hectic on screen. On iPhone 5 it's fine. I really am having a hell of a lot of fun with this. I don't see the economy as bad as everyone is saying at all. I got 4 cars, I'm level 29 and currently got over 30k stars and 100 gold so I could buy any other car I want. Never felt the need to wait or rush to buy anything. It's never really a grind anyway... It's a racing game! You race! And there is a LOT of content here. The things that could get expensive are the upgrades because you have to have a level 1 upgrade to choose level 2, and so on. But for me upgrades make it less interesting as you end up having too fast car compared to the pack. I prefer overcoming the odds and ragging a slower car on the limit! I'm sure at some point you have to upgrade to get the trophy and I have upgraded my Fiat 500. The difference isn't ridiculous and I guess the extra performance means you don't have to repair as often so it's win win. The repairs are totally not an issue if you want to repair by paying stars (you can earn the repairs for about 10 races from winning on 1 race if you don't drive like an idiot) but I never bothered speeding up yet. You can just drive another car or, like, leave the game for an hour Handling is really really nice for me. Now I've got used to it. Using tilt and pro gears (flick up to change up, flick down to change down, flick brake sideways for handbrake), it's just really intuitive and works great on touch. They definitely thought about it and its actually a genius solution. Can't believe people deleting it after the first race. You do need to give it chance to adapt to the steering and feel of it - it's really worth it when it clicks. My top tip is to be quite aggressive with steering in medium speed corners. Meaning don't just steer left because you are in a left bend. Do what the car wants... You can turn in quite sharp but then steer the other way to get the nose where you want it, steer back fast the other way etc (sawing at the 'wheel') to get position. It responds great particularly in some cars. Probably helps being in cockpit view maybe too as you will see more directly which way you are facing. The AI is also pretty good in the way they follow lines. The AI in RR3 is the thing that turns me off that game the most but here it's drawn me in. The menu is confusing to start with but I quite like it now. Stuff to explore and discover! They got it to fit on iPhone so it can't be that bad! Graphics I think are superb. The environments are nicely detailed, nice lighting and generally more subtle approach than loads of gloss for the sake of it. More importantly the track has good surface details (bumps in the road, camber, dips etc) in a much more natural way than I've seen on iOS before. Sounds are a bit glitchy (can't hear your own car sometimes) and it does lock up at the end of a race and/or crash sometimes. Seems related to posting your result back to leader boards. The variety of events and way you can earn coins is nice too. Always something new you can try. I hope they add real time online racing as that would be great if they can make it work. And more tracks of course but I see myself sticking with this game for a long time judging by how much I played already. The Formula Ford was awesome in a quick test drive! I'd say Driving Speed Pro still has better physics for the cars (especially under braking and turn-in) but this works very well when you tune into it allowing you to clip apexes and feel like YOU did it not the software TLDR; IMO the best complete racing package (with sim flavour if ur after something a little more serious) on iOS by a country mile (so far ;p) and probably one of the top 10 iPad games so far for me. I'm sure they will iron out the performance and bugs.
Judging by what you said, I dont know what racing games YOU'VE been playing to make this so good compared to other racing hames. Especially the timers. but obviously its still not worth the $7 waiting for minimum 99c
