Asphalt 7: Heat

The newest racing game from Gameloft, Asphalt 7: Heat, boasts a fast-paced, vibrant experience with plenty of traction. The basic premise with racing games gets fairly repetitive. The Asphalt series promises less of this repetition alongside refreshing gameplay styles and a rich cup-based competition system.

The controls for this game are simple and intuitive; players control a car by tilting their iPhone to screech around bends and zip through tunnels. Tapping the left side of the screen applies the breaks (handy for regaining control of a skidding car, or performing tight-corner drifts) and tapping the right side of the screen initiates a boost. That’s pretty much it. There are icons to collect on screen and other cars to avoid, but the operation is refreshingly basic. The complication lies in the career mode’s achievement-based story. Players progress through multi-race cups to earn money, win stars and unlock new cars and upgrades. The point is to complete all cups and unlock as many cars as possible. Even the racing modes are varied from the standard come-in-first rallies. There’s a plethora of game types—that rotate within cups—including “classic”, demolition-style “Knockout,” trick-based “Drift Challenge” and several more.

I’m hard-pressed to find anything bad to say about this game. I’m going to go on a limb and say that this is the most fun I’ve had on an iPhone (next to the Fifa franchise, of course). The gameplay is simple, the power-ups are satisfying and the sense of completion is really unparalleled. What I like most is the variance in game types; you can’t just get used to winning the “Classic” style, so it keeps you on your toes. For example, a cup might have 2 classic races, but the championship race might be “Elimination.” In this game type, the car in last place, after 30 seconds, is eliminated, and then the next car in last place after another 30 seconds is eliminated, and so on until there’s 1 car left. It’s really pretty fun. The money system is pretty intuitive as well. It requires you to prioritize your preferences and decide between new cars and new power-ups—lending itself to many different styles of play. The only negative I can think of is the battery drain; it’s a pretty heavy game so it tends to leech at battery life pretty quickly. Although, that is something one might expect from such a rich experience.

I highly recommend purchasing this game. It gives you a lot of “bang for your buck” pretty much across the board—great graphics, plenty of longevity and crisp, smooth gameplay. I only wish I had an iPad so I could see it on a bigger screen.