[iPhone] Review - Real Racing 2

[This is an opinion piece on "Real Racing 2" by Firemint. The official website is here.]

I spent quite a few hours with the original Real Racing, on my iPod Touch. So having a new iPhone 4, I thought I'd give this new game a try. After all, why would you want to sit comfortably on your couch, playing a racing game on your console with a 52" plasma TV and surround sound -- not when you can hunch over and peer at a 4" iPhone screen. It's common sense.

Menu screen. It's a menu screen. You pick shit from it.

Gameplay - Rock solid. You tilt to steer, and the actual image on the screen tilts against you to keep everything horizontal. It's a great system. Car handling is OK. It's not Forza 2 but it's much more realistic than any of those "Need for Speed" games that people keep buying.

Graphics - Obviously, pretty stunning. I can't really fault the graphics. The cars all look terrific, and so do the environments. The in-car view, which I always use, is pretty awesome too:

In car view is from in the car ....

Each car has it's own cockpit of course. Interestingly, I've never come across any slow-down, even at the first corner when you have 15 other cars all braking and bunching up.

Sound - Pretty solid. Many of the sounds are carried over straight from the original Real Racing, unfortunately. Could do with some meatier-sounding engines, to be honest. Music is a decent blend of rock, and dance-type stuff.

Single Player - Of course you have Quick Race, and Time Trials, but Career Mode is where you want to spend your time. You earn "rep" and money for completing races, and you'll quickly be buying new cars left and right, and upgrading them. And the upgrades actually make sense, for example "Cat-back exhaust", "Composite brake pads", etc. They vary in name and cost depending on the car you're upgrading. Better than some stupid thing like "Level 3 Engine Upgrade" from those "Need for Speed" games ... Pah, Need for Speed ... "Need for Some Realism" I'm calling them.

AI opponents are fine. They don't seem quite as aggressive as the first game.

Multiplayer - Here is where the only problems with this game come up. Multiplayer is actually fun and competitive, but the big problems are:

Skill Matching is poor. You'll often find yourself in a game with mostly slower cars like the VW Golf, and then 2 super-fast cars. Of course, they tear away from everybody else in the first few seconds, which leads to the second problem ...

People quit a lot. Like, every race has people dropping out. Probably because ...

There is no penalty for quitting as far as I can tell. At least if you lost some "rep" points, people might be less inclined to do it. Then again, there really is ...

No incentive for playing Multiplayer anyway, apart from fun. You're not earning the cash and rep that you can so easily earn in Singleplayer mode.

Maybe Firemint will address some of these things in an update.

Otherwise, this is a cool game which is easy to start playing, and get's more and more interesting as you turn off the driving aids (steering assist, braking assist, and anti-skid).

Real Racing 2 - 4 out of 5

Orange car is orange.

-Gray