Sideways Racing – iPad Game Review

By Juli | May 25, 2011 | No comment yet

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Sideways Racing, a new game from Bjango, is a fast paced top-down racing game with impressive graphics and thrilling music that harkens back to the classic 16-bit racing games you used to know and love.

There are three gameplay modes: League, where your aim is to race against AI competitors and win; Knockout, which requires you to race all tracks in succession – a win is the only way to advance; and Time Trial where you race against the clock to achieve your best possible speed.

Sideways Racing consists of three different areas (Botanica, Alpine, and Confusion), each with three tracks, for a total of nine different racing courses. The graphics were polished and extremely smooth on my iPad 2, and definitely the highlight of the game.

Control wise, this game may not be for everyone. There is no accelerometer control, so you are limited to tap or swipe steering. The acceleration and brake are available on the left side of the screen (this can be switched for left-handers) and the steering is controlled by left and right buttons on the right side of the screen. Alternatively, you are able to use your finger on the screen to turn left and right, using the swipe controls. I did ultimately end up preferring this method, which was a little more difficult to grasp, but not impossible.

Regardless of which steering method I used, I found the gameplay to be cumbersome and slow. The game advertises sliding through tracks, and that’s exactly what I did. There was no smooth turning mechanism, I slid and skidded through every turn, brakes screeching. The controls are very sensitive and will take some time to get used to. Gameplay is touted as fast paced, but everything seemed to move too slowly except when in nitro mode.

Running into walls and other cars will damage your own car, but there are plenty of items on the track to pick up, like wrenches for repairing. Other power-ups include nitro boosts for increasing speed, and destructive items for destroying enemy cars. These power-ups are what really made the game interesting and fun.

Game center integration is included, so you can beat your friends and win bragging rights. There are also 26 achievements to be had, from winning races to destroying enemy cars.

What I liked: The graphics and menu options were really well done and worked flawlessly on my iPad 2. The power-ups were a lot of fun and made otherwise slow gameplay

What I didn’t like: This game really needed a restart button. If I messed up, there was no recourse to start over and try again without sitting through an entire race I knew I was going to lose. I also did not like that at certain times, I was not allowed to take an alternate route when such a route was available to me. I would have liked a feature that allowed me to customize my car.

To buy or not to buy: If you are a fan of classic style top-down racing games, then the graphics and power-up fueled gameplay make this a worthwhile choice. This is a solid start, and I imagine the developer will provide updates in the future to address issues and add more features. Get it now while it’s just $1.99.