AAQR: Drag Racing (game)

Drag Racing Premium was given away on Amazon Free App of the Day, and it's a pretty addicting little game, ruined by a bit of pacing problem.

The game is simple drag racing: beat the other guy by performing good starts, accelerate, hit nitro if you got it, and basically beat the other guy.

There's "internet competition" by using ghost laps, and there's upgrades galore: 5 areas of 5 levels each. There's dozens of cars, from pedestrian VW Golf to Superexotics like Bugatti Veyron SuperSport. There's also offline race (i.e. race against AI), "online race" (race agains tother people's ghost runs), league racing (ranking improves as you race), and so on.

Graphics are simple, not 3D fancy, just 2D sprites, but they are quite smooth and detailed. And shifting is very precise.

And different cars do behave differently, and upgrades DO make a difference. Too much wheel spin? Add better tires, shift earlier to reduce torque, and so on. Advanced tuning options let you tweak the gear ratios and whatnot to REALLY optimize it for 1/2 mile or 1/4 mile.

Cars, cars, cars. I already said there's tons of cars. Figure about 100 or so, separated into 10 "levels" of cars. You can buy and sell all of them... if you have enough money.

however, the game has some problems in that the players can dig themselves a hole if they are not careful.

The game's like this: a Level 1 car can be upgraded with parts. When fully upgraded, the car will probably be a level 3. However, level 3 have pretty large variations. A fully decked out level 1, now a Level 3, when wielded properly, can probably do 10 second quarter miles.

However, a stock level 3 car, CANNOT do 10 second quarter miles. It can do about 11 second quarter mile.

Thus, if you sold your level 1 car (at about 20% loss of value), to buy a level 3, you won't be able to win ANY races on level 3, and thus, no income, no reputation points, and no upgrades. And thus, you are STUCK!

Fortunately, there is a special race called "driver's challenge", where you randomly race another driver in identical cars, and thus driver skill carries the day. This will allow you to accumulate some money and reputation to finance your upgrades.

All in all, Drag Racing is a surprisingly addicting little game. My only objection is the game often crashes on my OG Droid after a race, with "this program needs to close" error message, and that "logic hole" above (which I figured out).

At $1.99, I'd say get it.

http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Mobile-OU-Racing-Premium/dp/B005LJ079O