DMC Is Pretty Good, Catch My Drift?
Drift Mania is a racing game where instead of speeding to the finish, you drift to it. The point of this game is simple: get as many points as possible and finish the track within the time limit. You gain points by drifting around corners, and earning points faster by having longer, and faster drifts. Earning more points will give you a better trophy (the trophies being bronze, silver, and gold), and getting lots of gold trophies will get you better cars, and more tracks.
There are five cars in the game, four of them needing to be unlocked. How good the car is has three variables: its horsepower, its weight, and if it has rear wheel drive, or all wheel drive. It may just be me, but I don’t notice that much difference while driving a heavier car, or front vs. all wheel drive. There are three playable tracks, the first being mostly ovular-shaped, with a few easy corners to take advantage of. The second track is mostly comprised of very slight curves, but with four steep bends to rack in major points. The third and final track has a lot of steep curves, making it a very challenging track.
It should be noted that the final track doesn’t load, and crashes on 3.0 firmware, and may be unplayable on others, but it is expected to be fixed in a future update. While you’re doing a drift, the points you’re earning will be shown in the “current” section on the top right-hand corner of the screen. If you stop drifting, and start going in a straight line, your current score will be added to your total score (found above the current score). If you go off the track, you’ll lose all of your current points which is admittedly aggravating.
There are three difficulties: easy, medium, and hard, but the only differences are that better trophies requite higher points. Overall, for 99 cents, it’s a nice game to have when you have nothing else to do. But for just a little more money, you could get a much better racing game that also has drifting like Fast & Furious.
The controls themselves are quite nice, and original. Instead of simply having a brake, and gas pedal, on the side of the screen, there’s a bar. The higher you have your finger on the bar, the faster you go. If you have your finger on the absolute bottom of the bar, you’ll go backwards.
It’s pretty interesting to be able to have so much control over the speed of your car. To stop the car, there’s a brake lever that you pull, and can be used to implement certain swerves. You control the movement of the car using the accelerometer, meaning if you tilt your iDevice left, your car makes a left turn. Controlling the car itself is a nightmare when you first start, which is to be expected, as it‘s a drifting game. You will spend a lot of time off the track, which can be extremely aggravating when you first start out, but when you get good at it, it’s quite enjoyable.
The main thing here is “nice, but nothing special”. The graphics are nice, but not great. You won’t feel pained while looking at the screen, but it’s not eye candy. The game is in 3D (of course), but the scenery is mostly gray, and nothing will really catch your eye. The cars while racing mostly look the same, with just spoiler/color differences.
iFanzine Verdict: When buying the game, give it some time, don’t delete it right away. When you get the hang of it, it can be quite fun. You’ll get your money’s worth. Are there better apps out there for the same price? Yes. But if drifting is your thing, this is where it’s at.
[xrr rating=3/5]