Phaze Review
Many of us have been waiting for the perfect Wipeout clone to come to the App Store and that wait has gone on a lot longer than it should. A smooth futuristic racing game should be an easy thing to do… Heck… They were able to get a snail to glide along at a nice pace.
But now we finally have “Phaze” from Handmark Games (the folks who brought you some really good games like “Hellfire”, “My Little Tank”, “Platypus”, and “GTS World Racing”). Everything about it looks like we finally have the game we’ve been waiting for, but is that truly the case? Let’s take a closer look.
First off, the game looks really good. The frame rate is nice and (though I hate to say things like this) it has a real Nintendo DS quality. The tracks have a full feel to them and the backgrounds are very rich. The racers are also nicely designed and have some unique looks. On the negative side, there isn’t quite the sense of speed I was hoping to find. It’s close, but not quite there.
The sound for Phaze is actually quite nice. There’s the basic soundtrack that we’ve heard variations of through games like this, but I actually thought this worked really well. The driving music helped the speed issue a little. The other effects work well and you can see that time was spent on the sound – not just an afterthought like in many games.
And the controls are exactly what you would like to see. You just tilt the unit side to side to steer, and back and forth for speed. Everything flows quite well and there is even a warning if you have your device too flat (something I wish more games had). A simple touch of a button in the bottom right will unleash any specials you might have picked up along the way.
So Graphics, Sound, and Controls are all really good with the game. You’ve also got 16 different tracks to choose from, a total of 10 cars that you can unlock, four different difficulty levels, two game modes (Single Race and Championship)… the game seems perfect.
But wait… there are a few things that don’t quite sit well.
For one, the game is missing a few things that should seem standard in a game like this. There is no radar to tell you where the others are on the track. Even a little side bar letting you know who’s in what place would be good, but there is nothing. Once you’re in the lead you have no idea if anyone is even close to you. The other missing item is a scoreboard. It’s nice knowing that you’ve gotten a good lap time, but I want to see where it stands in the grand scheme of things.
Where I really thought things fell flat was the Championship mode. This should have been worked a lot more like a Career Mode where you can do different things with your racer. There could have been a bit of a story thrown in for fun. There could have even been a bit of a leader board. Instead the whole thing felt like a collection of single races. So much more could have been done here and the fact that it wasn’t just left me feeling a little flat.
I also want to point out that I’m tired of all the racing games that throw in the random weapon/special just by running over an object. I hate it because I don’t like being in the lead and always getting missiles. Just let me buy what I think I’ll need before the race and let me get going. If I run out I run out. I should have planned better. That’s the type of thing I want to see in a game.
So it’s not perfect… few games are. And, when I think back, Wipeout wasn’t a perfect game either, so I guess I should give the devs a little slack. It’s just that I was wanting a little more depth with the game and it fell short.
But for those who have been waiting for that wipeout experience to hit their iDevices, Phaze is the closest thing to come out so far. Great Graphics, Nice Sound Quality, and Easy to use Controls put this game way ahead of the competition.
The Good
Nice Graphics & Sound
Unlockable Cars & Tracks
Good ControlsThe Bad
Needs A Career Mode – Where You Can Customize Things
No Scoreboard
No Radar
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Category: Games
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Thanks Glenn! Its a ton of fun!
Cro-Mag rally kind of sucked because there was no point. So unlockable cars and tracks really make or break the racing game for me…and in this case, it makes it
hmm but it isn’t good tzat if you make to much speed the screengets red and you see nothing ..
What Do You Mean?
looks awesome and sounds awesome from the review!
This looks great. The cons sound like things that should be fairly easy to fix with an update. (Well adding a career mode might be some work) but hopefully the dev looks at feedback.
The graphics are absolutely amazing. it reminds me a bit of F ZERO X
Looks really good, kind of similar in style, at least in my opinion, to F zero GX
I’m always up for a cool racing game!
WOW how come I have never heard of this game thanks for bringing this to my attention. It looks like those Fzero games from Nintendo. I will def look into this game more, great review.
I’m going to have to disagree with you about the random weapons, I personally think they even out the battlefield and although the devs should think about a weapon store for certain modes, I would not get rid of the random modes. What a do have to criticize is the weapon implementation. It seems as if there is too much of a focus on hitting the boost ramps and therefore it’s hard to even pay attention to the random weapons. I even heard someone saying that the only way to win on harder difficulty levels is by memorizing the map and hitting all the boosts. I don’t think its a great detriment, not as much as not having a career mode (or other wacky modes, the more, the merrier). Despite all this criticism, I think it probably is a wonderful game and will probably own it one day.
Could you go into detail a bit more about what power ups are available for the game?
The graphics look superb. I also hope they have an update that adds somethings of a career mode.
I have to agree about the power-ups, also. It’s very tedious when the only power-ups you can get seem to be good only for those not in first. Definitely shift it so that when in first the power-ups help you maintain a lead!
It looks pretty sweet. Kind of like low grav racer but better
the only racing game i have is low grav racer, which is underwhelming to say the least. This kind of reminds me of it with the futuristic racer style but it seems way better and more polished.
I still dont have a racing game. This one looks pretty good.
I Loved Wipeout, And This Is The Closest Thing I Can Hope For Right Now. I Am Disappointed About Not Having Any Costumization But Not Enough To Keep Me Away From This Game. I’ll Probably Buy It.
I loved Wipeout pure and when i saw this on youtube and posted it in the forums i fell in love…if i dont win i will buy it
Cool, sounds fun
great graphic looks fun ..
but i prefer mini games maybe a race takes to much time .. dunno:D
“wipeout theme In head”. Looks fun!
Looks great; I love futuristic wipeout style racing. Too bad about no career mode.
I was very tempted to get Low Grav racer a while back, but due to the control issues I didn’t.
This looks way better to me.
It sounds like the need to employ the Mario Kart strategy of always giving weapons that go behind you when you are in the lead. (No red shells)
WOW THAT LOOKS SIMPLY AMAZING!!
Shame about the “Where I really thought things fell flat was the Championship mode” i’m looking forward to a game with plot,
although NFS is just to expensive
Although unlockables does sound great!