Race illegal: High Speed 3D is not for you if you're looking for a realistic iOS car racing game experience. In fact, with its bright colors and flashy animation, it is anything but realistic. But I guess these are the type of reasons people play racing games instead of just driving a real car and what makes Race Illegal: High Speed 3D so much fun.
In the gaming world, the words 'illegal' and 'racing' go together like 'Apple' and 'success'.
Race Illegal is a lot like
Need For Speed: Undercover. The storyline is the tried and true clan vs. clan, complete the task, and avenge your cousin type. As you advance through races money is earned and new cars, parts, decals, and challenges are unlocked. You also unlock more tracks to choose from in Quick Race mode. Achievements and high scores are handled by both Game Center and Crystal.
Two great things about the controls (and what you'd want from any controls) are their simplicity and effectiveness. Racing is all about speed, so a gas pedal button control is nonexistent as your car accelerates automatically. This leaves you to focus on more important matters like steering. Steering is controlled by the accelerometer but a quick trip to the options menu allows you to change that to either an onscreen steering wheel or tapping to turn. Swiping up fires up the nitrous to increase your vehicle's speed while tapping the brake button slows the car down. A rear view mirror lets you look behind and an adjustable mini map shows the track. Additionally, all of the clutter that can be distracting (maps, speedometer, time, switch camera icon, etc.), can be cleared off and brought back on the screen with a double tap.
Everything in this game is fun including drifting around corners, bumping cars, and swerving out of the way of oncoming cars. However, winning races seems to be more dependent on the quality of your car than actual driving skills. This, along with the “rubber banding” which stops the CPU’s cars from pulling too far ahead when you wreck, makes the game more suited for someone who wants a forgiving racing game. Though this game isn’t on the same level as Firemint's
Real Racing series , Gameloft’s
Asphalt 6, or EA’s
Need For Speed line of games, it is still fun and definitely worth picking up.
AppPicker Rating: 4 / 5 Stars
Pick It Up in the App Store:
Race illegal: High Speed 3D
Other apps by
Chillingo
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0kWtGwdfEI