Pocket Racer is an old style racing game which put us in mind of classics like Micro Machines and RC Pro-Am on ye olde NES.
All the action is top down and the controls are very simple. Acceleration is automatic and you tap left or right on the screen to turn. You brake as you turn so you can prepare for tricky hairpins by gently tapping left or right on order to take the edge off of your speed as you approach.
There are five cars and five tracks to race on, with certain cars faring better than others on certain surfaces. On the dirt track level for example you’ll probably want to go for the green car, as it has the least grip and is faster over the rougher surface.
Currently you can only race against ghost opponents – either your own or ghosts of other players who’ve uploaded their best times to the scoreboard. A live online challenge mode is apparently in the pipeline and is due to arrive in September – so you’ve got about a month to hit the tracks and get some practice laps in. This will make things infinitely more interesting; racing against a ghost and beating someone’s time is all well and good but there’s no opportunity for collisions or to cut anybody up on the last corner.
Pocket Racer Lite gives you access to the first two cars (blue and red) and the first course and is more than enough to give you a feel for how the game works. The full version costs £2.49 and gives you access to the full garage plus the all-important online challenge mode.
Leave a Reply