Racer Review

When I used to look at racing games in the “handheld games” section of stores all you’d ever see is the games that basically just had you switching lanes to avoid the oncoming traffic.  I’d scoff at them because I could see no way that they’d be any fun to play.

Yet I’ve just spent the last 90 minutes playing a game that follows the same type of rules and I’ve had a great time doing it… Go Figure.

“Racer” by Tatem Games is a very simple “pick up and play game”.  In fact, calling it “simple” might be stretching things a bit.  But don’t thing that it doesn’t mean the game isn’t fun to play, or that it’s not challenging… Racer is all of those things.

Your goal is to guide your car through lanes of traffic and try not to run into any of them.  This is done by simply putting your finger on the screen and moving it around.  By moving the car up the screen a bit you will be going faster.  This will gain you more points, but will also give you less reaction time should a car suddenly be coming down on you.

As mentioned above, even with the simple elements of the game, there is still a lot of challenge.  There are a lot of cars on the road and they are all traveling at different speeds.

This will keep you on your toes… err… finger.  Zooming in and out of the traffic will prove to be a little tougher than you expected.  The good news is that it will be a lot more fun, and you don’t have to worry about paying any speeding tickets.

You start with three lives in the game and get to keep driving until you’ve wrecked enough cars.  To make it a little easier you can earn some extra lives as you progress.  But there is no free lunch here.  That “progression” means that you’re also going up in levels and that means more cars… faster cars… on the road.

Control of the game is easy.  I mentioned the touch control, but I want to point out that don’t need to worry about that same finger getting in your way of the view.  I was worried about this at first, but it never came into play.  The navigation through the menu is just as easy.

The graphics and sound are not overly impressive, but they work fine for the game.  You don’t really need much in terms of the cars for this game, and it is nice that you can pick out the color of your car, but it would be even nicer to have a chance to customize the car even more.

Or how about working on the background a little more – sure that would make it even harder to keep an eye on the cars, but it would be fun.  The coolest part of the sound is the “whiz by” sound as you pass cars.

I also like that global scoreboard for the game.  There is even a little section that tells you exactly where you stand in the world.  Moving up the ladder is a great reason to give it “one more try”.

There are a few things I’d like to see added to the game.  One is a few unlockables or achievements that you can gain.  There are a bunch of options of things like this and I’m hoping that some of them can pop up in updates.

Also, while the game does let you flip sides in landscape mode, I can’t help but wonder what the game would be like in portrait.  Sure you’d lose a lane or two on the sides, but you’d also get a better view of the cars coming at you.

I have to say that Racer is a great diversion game, especially for the price.  It fits the bill nicely for the times when you want something to fill a minute or two while you’re in a check out line… but watch out, it won’t be long before you start looking at those lines as if they were lanes and you start trying to speed your way through them.

Racer is a great update of the handheld racing games.  It’s also a lot better and even a lot cheaper.  I think I just found the perfect fast lane!

The Good

Pick Up & Play To The Max
Easy To Use Controls
Nice Scoreboard

The Bad

Portrait Version Might Be Good
Could Use Some Unlockables And/Or More Customization

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Category: Games