In Episode 1, you play as a truck driver chasing a girl in a sports car down the highway. The iTunes description mentions similarities to the classic Sega arcade game OutRun, which couldn’t possibly serve as a better comparison. Tilting the phone controls your truck, and all you do is chase the girl, ramming her car whenever possible for points. A countdown timer is constantly ticking away which is refreshed by passing checkpoints, and during your pursuit you will need to fend off angry police, bikers, and avoid a constant onslaught of traffic that will slow you down.

Several power ups can be picked up during your adventure. So far I’ve come across three: A set of horns that allow you to ram other cars off the road easily, a rocket booster that sends you flying towards the next checkpoint, and a tongue attack point multiplier. You can also honk the horn of your truck, this doesn’t seem to do anything, but I can’t seem to help myself from doing it almost constantly.

Truckers Delight: Episode 1 includes an odd amount of cartoon nudity for a game on the App Store. Not only does it include the first portion of the original video, but when you pick up the power up to let your tongue fly, it quite literally results in an on-screen explosion of naked women.
I’ve actually had a surprising amount of fun with Truckers Delight. Mobigame did a great job of nailing the feel of endless retro racing games, and the difficulty ramps up nicely requiring quite a bit of concentration as you dart between oncoming cars in your 18 wheeler. Truckers Delight features online leaderboards which are already loaded with scores that are about twice as high as my best score, and it’s hard to not get in to the catchy soundtrack included with the game.

The post Review: Truckers Delight: Episode 1 appeared first on AppTrawler.

Deliverace is a top down racing game that seems to be what you would get if you were looking to cross the classic arcade game Super Off Road and the late 70’s/early 80’s TV series “The Dukes of Hazzard”. Racing through the various included tracks (with some unlockable by beating earlier tracks) amounts to keeping your finger firmly mashed on the gas, and drifting through each corner while hitting as many jumps as possible.
Almost every conceivable control option is included, from a set of right/left buttons seen in the video below, as well tilt controls, and two different kinds of virtual steering wheels. Six different cars are in-game as well that all handle differently, ranging from a pick up truck to a hummer and even a semi truck.

In the preview build I’ve been playing, there are three different game types: Standard races against AI opponents, a time trial, and delivery mode where you need to ferry cargo around a map as quickly as possible. Also, the game features a multiplayer mode, and although it is grayed out in this version, there is an menu option for internet multiplayer.

The craziest thing about Deliverace is this preview build is chock full of warnings about how it’s an early version with bugs and placeholder art, but even in its current state, it’s one of the coolest looking top down racing games I’ve ever played. Deliverace is still in development, and I’m really looking forward to playing a finalized version of the game.

The post Preview: Deliverace appeared first on AppTrawler.

The benefits of riding a motorbike seem to be massively outweighed by the cons. It’s expensive, dangerous, noisy, impractical, and you have to wear a gigantic helmet when riding.

None of that diminishes the breakneck excitement, which in turn should make for an exhilarating game.

Unfortunately, Ducati Moto captures none of this thrill, instead exhibiting a number of cons including clunky controls, lagging sense of speed, and poor graphics.

The right gear

Ducati Moto does offer some great ideas, though they’re quickly run over. Recruiting the well-known powerbike company is the first thing the developer has done right. The game includes eight Ducati models, though other than a marginal increase in speed and a bit of colour there’s really no difference between them.

Rather than provide a slate of courses, the game uses one big, complex, winding track. It’s an interesting approach that has you racing through different parts of it depending on the challenge posed. Handled properly, this city-wide ant farm of roads is a great way to cruise the streets looking for action.

Nevertheless, these small triumphs don’t come close to salvaging what has to be one of the worst set of driving mechanics ever seen on the platform.

Tired and exhausted

You steer by tilting your handset, but the game might as well employ the volume control buttons. Tilting has your biker leaning hard, essentially reducing the controls to a digital system.

Turns involve steering sporadically (at full wheel lock) to the left or right in an attempt to coax the bike into pointing roughly in the right direction. If you come out of the corner and you’re not heading in a straight line down the road, there’s no hope of straightening out.

Fortunately this atrocious steering method is made a little easier by the fact that these bikes are no faster than an electric mobility vehicle being driven by a blind grandmother in a crocheted bobble hat. The experience wouldn’t be any more agonising if the bike’s seat was replaced with a rusty spike.

Those poor polygons

It’s a shame that Ducati Moto can’t blame its dreadful performance on graphical weight. While the backgrounds are decent enough and the presentation perfectly acceptable, the bikes and riders would look questionable on a Game Boy.

The 3D models are rough and jagged, while the animation looks as though a puppeteer is pulling strings from about your iPhone. Presumably this is a license left over from the DS version of Ducati Moto, since it’s hard to believe the bike manufacturer would be too keen on showcasing its motors as boxy, misshapen figures.

Deep, deep within Ducati Moto there is a germ of a good motorbike racing game (mainly in the gambling stakes and the excellent track layout), but it’ll take an entirely new racing system to bring it to the surface.

The post Review: Ducati Moto appeared first on AppTrawler.

Racing: whether it’s the comical tractor lawnmower variety, Earth-churning horsepower of a rally car, or neck-breaking pace of an F1 championship, a spectacle is almost certainly guaranteed.

Man has seen fit to race in just about everything for the challenge, the thrill, and for competition.

Sadly, most of us don’t have the backing of Honda’s Formula 1 division or a rally deal with a major car manufacturer, so most of us will never quite know what it is like to accelerate in an obscenely low number of seconds to 60 miles per hour.

Qualifying lap

That’s precisely what F1 2009 offers, though time is more central to the experience than speed. Time trials supplant actual competition, leaving what ought to be a lesson in high velocity racing nothing more than a rush against the clock.

There’s some satisfaction to be had from setting new lap times, but that’s all you will be doing – no other modes are offered.

Without other racers on the grid it’s hard to check off thrill and competition. It feels empty, almost like a demo, as if Codemasters forget to add in a large chunk of the game. It’s all the more a shame when the driving mechanics are as finely-tuned as they are here.

A score of authentically rendered tracks are included, not to mention some fairly respectable graphics and two different lap time modes, but these don’t stop F1 2009 from feeling like a Lite version of itself.

There’s even a bit of slowdown on iPhone 3G and older iPod touch handsets, which doesn’t help its cause.

The post Review: F1 2009 appeared first on AppTrawler.

If this is the first you’ve heard of this game, we got a great deal of hands-on time before its release and posted an in-depth preview. Shift departs from the Need For Speed arcade style gameplay which has become standard over the years to include more simulation elements including the ability to customize cars in many different ways, buy new ones, and the game even constantly tracks your performance to determine what kind of driver you are– Aggressive or precise.

There’s a lot to like about Need For Speed: Shift and we think it can easily hang with the best racing games on the platform. Shift sports licensed cars and music, great graphics, and a great control system with settings that make the game approachable for casual players as well as technical enough for hardcore players.

If you’ve enjoyed racing games on the iPhone, this isn’t one you will want to pass up… And if you haven’t yet played a racing game on the platform, Need For Speed: Shift is a great starting point.

App Store Link: Need For Speed: Shift, .99

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Featuring 6 tracks, bluetooth multiplayer, unlockable achievements, and strangely enough a file size that is small enough to download over 3G. It shares all the same tilt controls as the previous games, and seems to use a similar engine as the game plays very similar to the other two games in the Moto Racing series short of being on a snowmobile instead of a Jet Ski or an ATV.

The physics in the game can be a little weird at times, with your snowmobile just bouncing off things you run in to instead of crashing, but other than that it’s an enjoyable racing game with a price that can’t be beat. (Not to mention getting loads of air and pulling of tricks is just as fun on a snowmobile as it is on a ATV or Jet Ski.) While Snow Moto Racing doesn’t have a lite version, you can try out the free versions of either Aqua Moto or Dirt Moto to get a good idea of how these games perform and control.

App Store Link: Snow Moto Racing, 99¢

The post Out Now: Snow Moto Racing appeared first on AppTrawler.

In Driver, you play as Tanner, a detective from New York who has been assigned a dangerous task: going undercover with the gangs that make up the criminal underbelly of New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and San Francisco. The “Undercover” mode serves as the single player campaign in the game and consists of about 40 missions. Missions do a good job of providing some decent variety in their structure; one minute you’ll be attempting to keep up with a speedboat as it makes for an island hideout, the next you’ll find yourself ramming into restaurants with the goal of busting up their glass fronts.

Driver isn’t all about the story mode. There are numerous minigames, referred to as “Driving Games,” on the game’s main menu. In “Pursuit” you’ll be tasked with chasing down another vehicle and dealing enough damage to take them out as quickly as possible. In “Getaway” you’ll switch roles, attempting to evade and lose the trail of the police. Other minigames failed to catch my interest, like “Cross Town Checkpoint” or “Trailblazer”, the latter of which involves randomly driving around knocking down 100 traffic cones.

Despite the weak first half of the “Driving Games” list, the second half of the minigame collection is much better and includes several fun games, my favorite of which being “Survival” mode. In Survival, players are brutally attacked by an unending legion of cop cars. The utmost skill in evasion techniques will be required in order to even stand a chance at lasting over a minute in this mode, and it makes for an extremely compacted session of what I consider to be the best parts of Driver. I also loved “Dirt Track” (a rally-style time trial game) and “Carnage” (an extremely fun mode that’s very similar to the “crash” mode in the Burnout series).

Visually, Driver doesn’t really hold up to other racing games on the App Store, but it comes close. The dated, PS1-era graphics benefited tremendously from the face lift that Gameloft gave them in this port, but the fact remains that there are better looking games on this platform. The worst part about Driver’s visual style is undoubtedly the cutscenes, which are weirdly dark in an attempt to hide the unimpressive human 3D models in the game. At first, the constant use of darkness and shadows seems cool and stylish, but I quickly got tired of not being able to see anything in the cutscenes, losing almost all of my desire to watch them.

The audio in Driver is similarly disappointing, with what seems like only a few musical tracks that play themselves to death on your car’s in-game radio, only interrupted by even fewer lines from the radio DJs. You’ll hear the same tired jokes three-dozen times before you complete the full story mode in Driver, and if you’re like me, you’ll eventually just give up and turn off the noise altogether.

The most important part (arguably) of a vehicle-based game on the iPhone/iPod Touch are the controls. While I usually prefer accelerometer controls in such games (which Driver does indeed offer), I have to say that the on-screen touch controls that are set as the default control method in this game are some of the best on the platform. Trying them out for yourself is the best way to see what I mean by this, but the D-pad layout simply works; you’ll forget you’re playing on a device without any real, physical buttons to speak of.

In what may sound like a flaw but is actually a feature, the cop A.I. in Driver is completely nonsensical. Simultaneously vicious like wolves and stupid like sheep, police officers can be witnessed doing things worthy of national media attention about every 5 seconds in this game. The cops of Driver do not believe in the right to pull over and surrender oneself to the law; in their minds, the only way to stop crime is to ram into it repeatedly until it explodes.

Cops will work together in intelligent, inhuman fashion to slam you into a building at full speed, but when you put any sort of physical object in between yourself and them, prepare for fireworks. Driving around obstacles is just not an option for the fine officers in Driver. Instead, they will drive at full speed into civilians, trees, and even units of their own force in a desperate attempt to crush you with pure inertia. This makes for some of the most hilarious moments that I’ve had with a game in recent times, and I honestly think that Driver is a much better game for it.

There is no option to view replays in this version of Driver, and there is no multiplayer. If these two things were to be fixed in a future update, I would be absolutely in love with it, but even without that, this is an easy recommendation. The story mode is entertaining, but it’s the great controls and supremely fun minigames that make Driver worth it. The game may have its flaws, but Gameloft has done a great job in making what could have been a quick and dirty port into a legitimately fun piece of software.

App Store Link Driver, .99

The post Driver – A Good Port appeared first on AppTrawler.

If the answer is ‘yes’, then Low Grav Racer 2 will probably fulfil all your demon speed needs in one futuristic package. Fans of the classic PlayStation title WipEout or the Xbox’s Quantum Redshift will recognise the gameplay on offer.

For those who don’t, the idea is simple: try to win each race. Included are 18 tracks, from the beautifully named Dante Nebula to the Arkonian Rift – all wrapped in some rather crisp-looking 3D graphics.

You can choose six ships to race and three new classes, each able to utilise a plethora of weapons designed to unleash hell on the other racers.

Also included is the ability to post your scores on leaderboards, and the chance to earn awards, providing you can keep your ship on the track.

Low Grav Racer is available now on the App Store for £1.79. Sunday drivers need not apply.

The post Out Now: Low Grav Racer 2 appeared first on AppTrawler.

True Axis has released its much anticipated Jet Car Stunts racer which has been described as “a fun, over the top, 3D driving game, with massive jumps, mid-air hoops, floating platforms, spiral roadways, outlandish maneuvers and impossible environments.” The game offers two modes of play:

• Platforming – the player maneuvers the car from roadway to roadway, performing connecting stunts to reach the finish line.
• Time Trails – the player races around stunt-filled circuits to beat the lap records.

Here’s a video of the time trial mode:

The post Out Now: Jet Car Stunts appeared first on AppTrawler.

Asphalt 5, Gameloft’s follow-up title in their arcade racing series, has squealed into the app store. While Asphalt 4 received a somewhat lukewarm reception from gamers, Asphalt 5 appears to have the makings of a racing game that will satisfy even the most jaded players.

This is a seriously jam-packed game with content to spare. A quick look at the instructions will verify this. As you’d expect, the three typical game modes are present: Single Race, Career mode, and Mutiplayer (available in both Bluetooth and online varieties). Single Race simply gets you into the driver’s seat as quickly as possible. The only difference between this and Career mode is that the stakes don’t matter. Regardless of your success, you cannot unlock new cars, tracks, etc. Selecting Single Race requires you to choose any unlocked vehicle and unlocked location. A quick, skippable video overview of the course plays before you are released on a 3-lap race for practice, or fun, or whatever you might use this mode for. There is also a Quick Race option that randomly selects your car, track, and event for even quicker gameplay.

Career mode is where the real action is. There are 8 different events available in Career mode. Normal requires you to finish in the top 3 to earn money. Cash Attack requires you to collect as much money as possible. Money can also be earned for driving with style. Cop Chase tasks you with catching scofflaws, while Escape will have you eluding the police. Drift allows you to earn points for drifting, regardless of how well you finish the race. Time Trial is your chance to show how quickly you can make it from starting line to checkered flag. Duel pits you against a single other racer, winner takes all. Last Man Standing eliminates the slowest driver until there is only one left. Multiplayer is available locally and online against players from all over. We found multiplayer to be adequate and experienced little to no difficulty getting connected and playing over wi-fi.

There are a total of 33 available vehicles (including motorcycles) and 12 locations, many exotic, all gorgeous in their own way. Terrific detail was paid to the look of the game, and it shows. Colors are vibrant and roadways are clear and crisp. Weather conditions are also impactful, with snow and rain appearing on the tracks and affecting the driving quality.

Gameplay offers a real adrenaline rush, allowing you little time to scratch your own nose, let alone anything else. In Normal mode, you’ll race against 5 other cars. On the track, you’ll encounter various power-ups, including Nitrous canisters, tuning kits, and cash. These are collected simply by driving though them. There is a boost button in the lower right corner of the screen. Tapping this button with give you a short burst of speed. The nitrous canisters refill this reserve, which depletes quickly. Our one complaint is that the button is a bit small and we missed it from time to time. Tuning kits repair damage sustained by your vehicle during the race. Cash is cash, good for the future purchase of vehicle upgrades or cosmetic changes, such as paint jobs or decals. Cash can also be earned through driving skills, such as drifting, eliminating other cars, and close calls/near misses.

The graphics really offer a visually impressive experience, one that satisfied our hopes for this game. The soundtrack is also upbeat, enhancing the experience. Gameloft understands that driving music is a very personal choice, so they offer a button on the game screen that allows you access to your own music library. The controls, perhaps the most important aspect of the game, are quite effective and responsive. There are three options: accelerometer, screen tap, and wheel, all of which utilize a sensitivity slider for further customization to taste. We found the accelerometer controls worked well and stuck with those after quick attempts with the other two. Auto-acceleration can be toggled on or off, though we kept it on. There are three camera options, including a cockpit view. An on-screen mini-map allows you to gauge your position among other racers, as well as see where shortcuts exist which may give you an advantage, as your opponents always stick to the main roadway. The opponent AI is good, showing enough aggression to make you work for your victories, but not enough to make you want to quit.

Replayability is outstanding, due to tons of unlockables, a wealth of various game modes, online multiplayer, and enjoyable gameplay. There are several racing titles available in the app store, but Asphalt 5 is certainly worthy of Top 5 status, if not Top 3. As with most new Gameloft titles, Asphalt 5 will set you back $6.99, but it’s a small price to pay for a terrific game which could remain a staple on your iDevice for a long time.

The post Review: Asphalt 5 appeared first on AppTrawler.

Sure, there have been WipEout clones such as Low Grav Racer, amongst others, but the definitive article hasn’t made its way to the starting line.

Ground Effect could be that game.

Its pedigree is impeccable. Created by Glenn Corpes, the legendary coder of Bullfrog and EA UK games in the 1990s, it looks great, and the accelerometer controls are a delicate combination of solid and sensitive. You also have touch buttons on the right hand side of the screen for brake and boost.

In fact, my only concern is that the difficulty level might be too high.

The set up is simple. You race an Ekranoplan, or a low flying seaplane that uses a compressed cushion of air – the ground effect – to skim across the water and over small outcrops of land.

There are 12 levels to race around, and you have to unlock them in turn by coming third or better in races that consist of seven competing craft.

The courses are well designed, with a mixture of twisting turns, long straights to boost down and plenty of jumps. They are fairly linear, however, as you have to fly through indicated waypoints, whereupon new waypoints are illuminated, and so on.

As with the best racing games, it takes time to learn the best routes inbetween each waypoint – something levels such as the devilish fourth really encourage.

Unlike the others, it’s non-linear. The twist is that the first time you attempt to make your way through the maze of islands, you’ll likely to crash in a ball of flame into rock faces too tall for you to fly over. Of course, you could take the easy route and just fly around the islands, but that’s boring and you won’t ever unlock the next level.

Gameplay aside, however, what’s really great about Ground Effect is just zooming around over the top of the water and islands and then making an inch perfect banking turn to squeeze through the waypoint and shave a tenth of a second off your best lap time.

Like WipEout, the best levels become somewhat Zen-like.

Frankly, I can’t wait to get my hands on the release build, which luckily should be due any day now.

The post Ground Effect: Hands on appeared first on AppTrawler.

Whereas most racing games pitch you directly against other cars and drivers, Rally Master Pro keeps strictly to its remit by following the point-to-point asynchronous racing format.

This means there’s only ever one car on the screen in Rally Master Pro, which frees up the system resources to
go to town on features like realistic driving physics, reactive road surfaces, particle systems and weather conditions.

It’s this attention to microscopic detail that earned the mobile version of Rally Master Pro a Platinum Award, and the iPhone adaptation – which has been rebuilt from the ground up – is now revving its engine on the App Store ready for you to get behind the £4.99 wheel.

Have another look at the official trailer below, then put your foot down on the ‘Buy It!’ button and get over to the App Store and check it out.

The post Rally Master Pro: Out Now appeared first on AppTrawler.

You play as a chariot racer in arenas set in Jerusalem, Rome, and Egypt. However, all of the tracks look nearly identical, and the only difference is in the amount of junk littering the course. You have to avoid this debris by pulling your horses to the left and right, while simultaneously whipping them to go faster by pressing buttons on the bottom of the screen.

The view is so zoomed in on your chariot that you will be unable to challenge other racers. Instead, you just have to focus on keeping your speed up and avoiding debris. If another chariot does enter your personal space, you can tap on them to whip them and make them fall back, but that’s the full extent of the game’s combat. We were expecting some spiked wheels, at least.

Further disappointing us was the absence of any online features, as the word “live” in the title would suggest. Very little about the game indicates vitality, except for the roaring crowd noises, and a live-action introduction that looks like a shot-by-shot Gladiator remake.

So why bother playing Ben Hur Live at all? Well, if you’re like us, you probably think there’s a lot of potential in a swords-and-sandals epic on the iPhone, and Ben Hur Live at least attempts to convey the excitement of chariot racing. Granted, it’s not very successful, but at least it’s not the same old aliens or zombies we’re fighting against.

If it were cheaper, and maybe improved with some new features down the road, we could see Ben Hur Live as worth your time. In its current state, though, this game is about as evocative of ancient Rome as a plate of Caesar salad.

The post Review: Ben Hur Live appeared first on AppTrawler.

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Once Upon a Time…

Shrek and his friends are on a quest: To become the Kingdom’s Fastest Kart Racer! Race to your own Fairy Tale ending and try to win Ye Grand Tournament.
But remember: Only 1st Place lives Happily Ever After!

All is fair(y) in this twisted tournament tale:

– 4 SINGLEPLAYER MODES: Single Race, Tournament, Challenges and Arena modes

– LOCAL MULTIPLAYER MODE: Challenge your friends to eat your dust via Wi-Fi (with up to 6 players) and Bluetooth (2 players)!

– MILES OF RACING FUN with 19 cups in the Tournament mode and 72 challenges to face!

– 10 UNIQUE KARTS: Each character has custom built his or her own vehicle, each with a special ability and different characteristics.

– 11 DEFENSIVE & OFFENSIVE POWER-UPS: Drop the Cow That Jumped Over the Moon on an opponent or shoo away those Angry Bees by wiping off the screen with your finger!

– 15 TRACKS (12 Speedways & 3 Arenas): Beautiful 3D environments from throughout the Kingdom, from Shrek’s home in The Swamp to the palm-lined streets of Far Far Away.

– MORE THAN 10 PLAYABLE CHARACTERS: Shrek, Donkey, Fiona, Ogre Triplets, Puss In Boots, Gingy, 3 Little Pigs, Pinocchio, Big Bad Wolf and the Ghost of Lord Farquaad !

– iPod LIBRARY ACCESS: Rock out to your own personal soundtrack while you speed towards the Finish Line! (Works with the OS 3.0 software update.)

Race Happily Ever After!

The post Shrek Kart – Overview appeared first on AppTrawler.

True Axis’s Jet Car Stunts was described as “a fun, over the top, 3D driving game, with massive jumps, mid-air hoops, floating platforms, spiral roadways, outlandish maneuvers and impossible environments.” Controls are accelerometer based along with mid-air flight controls to nudge the angle of flight or adjust speed with air braking.

We loved the look of the game video, but had some questions about the game’s playability from that video alone. We’ve since had a chance to interview Luke Ryan and Andy Coates of True Axis about their upcoming racer. They also provided this exclusive hands-on video showing their game and controls in action:

Q: We understand Jet Stunt Cars is based on the True Axis Physics SDK. Can you give us a little bit of history on this game engine and the company?

Luke Ryan: The True Axis Physics SDK was a bit of an accidental development. It started back in 2002 as part of a game demo I was developing. The physics engines back then were not good enough, and I already had a few years experience involving lots of physics programming, so I made a much better one. I started getting a few requests to make it commercial. In-between doing contract work for mobile and handheld games, I did all the extra work necessary to commercialise it, which was the reason for the formation of the company, True Axis.

Since then, the physics engine scene has changed unrecognisably. I’d always kept in touch with the mobile gaming scene here in Melbourne and I started to fall back into that. I met my co-owner at True Axis, Andy Coates, while I was helping out at Firemint. In 2008, I decided to take True Axis into independent game development which has always been my dream.

Back at Firemint, Andy was motivated to get into iPhone development after working closely with James Hui. James went on to form Epicforce and released the excellent iFighter. In turn, Andy approached me and convinced me to move into iPhone development together. Andy joined me as co-owner as True Axis moved from physics engines to mobile games.

We have a few projects in the works, but Jet Car Stunts came from thinking about a good use for the physics engine, a gap in the market Andy noticed on the App Store, and many years experience developing driving games. Jet Car Stunts borrows ideas from many places, but the core of it goes back 10 years to when I was coding a rocket power-up for a sand box driving game. I learnt that fast cars, massive jumps, plus rocket power is even more fun than it sounds.

Q: In our first preview of the game, we questioned how good the controls were for the game. So, how are the controls?

Luke Ryan:: Accelerometer controls were a concern when we were deciding to make this game. I put a lot of effort into early prototyping, borrowing from many years experience working on mobile and handheld driving games. To my surprise, the controls actually worked much better than I had hoped for. The game was immediately fun to play, and has improved a lot during development. Making this game has really been a lot of fun and we’ve been having a lot of fun playing it too.

Q: How does the game perform on last generation devices (iPhone 3G, 2G iPod touch) vs. current generation units (iPhone 3GS, 3G iPod touch)?

Luke Ryan: Obviously the announcement video was not recorded on iPhone hardware. However due to precision driving nature, we were very keen to make the game as responsive and as smooth as possible. We currently have the game running at a perfectly smooth 30 FPS on a 1G iPod and 60 FPS on the 3GS/3G iPod. The 2G iPod can do 60 FPS most of the time, but we found that locking to 30 FPS gives smoother overall performance and is very hard to differentiate from the 3GS.

Andy Coates: A lot of research has been put into building the iPhone game shell to be as efficient as possible, plus a good understanding of the underlying OS, using our own custom sound mixer, and a lot of years experience in optimising the GPU side of things has made Jet Car Stunts run very well on the lowest denominator hardware (1G iPod). I don’t think many developers really push the older hardware to the limits. We believe that if you can get the older hardware closer to the newer hardware, in terms of performance, then the end user will have a better game experience. What I mean is that you can spec the game design to have more eye candy content that will work on all devices really well.

Q: The game seems to be flat-shaded vs. texture mapped. Is that key to the game’s performance?

Luke Ryan: We are really happy how the nostalgic graphics style of the game turned out. Part of the choice was for performance, but we also wanted to just focus on making a game that played really well, that was really high quality, but at a really affordable price. The ‘flat shaded’ style let us concentrate on what is important, that is, making a fun game.

I should point out, as any computer graphics buffs will be quick to guess, there is more going on than simple flat shading. The game uses pre-calculated lightmaps generated with a custom radiosity renderer. Radiosity can give really natural lighting and shadows. The light maps aren’t as fast to render as flat shading, but they are still quite efficient.

Andy Coates: Also, to point out we are using 32bit colour and the game looks absolutely gorgeous.

Q: As far as we can see, the game is single-player only. Any plans for multiplayer or online leaderboards?

Luke Ryan: No multiiplayer, but an online leaderboard and achievement system are very important to us. It is the last task we have before we can complete the game, and we are working on that now.

I’m not sure how suited multi-play is to this style of game, but obviously it would be cool to figure something out. Unfortunately, multiplayer is also a lot of extra work and we don’t want to do something tacked on. Our goal is to make the highest quality best value for money game we can. Having said that, future updates are always a possibility, you never know.

Andy Coates: We may consider a type of challenge mode for future updates but we have to see how the game is received.

Q: At certain times in the preview video the camera angle rotates about the traveling vehicle. Are these scenes playback moments?

Luke Ryan: Shh, don’t tell anybody. Much of the video was done from the games replay mode, and these camera angles where actually created purely for the promo video. I’ll tell you what, I’ll give [your readers] an opportunity to influence the game. Do you think we should waste a bit of extra time to put a button to change cameras during the replay? Think carefully about your answer, if you answer yes, I will blame you for any release delays.

Q: What is TrueAxis’ view of the iPhone platform in general? What lies ahead for your studio?

Luke Ryan: We have lots of experience working on mobile games back to around 2002. The people I was working on projects with back then now seem all run very respected mobile game companies. Anyway, after fighting with so many devices with horrible controls and crippled operating systems, for so many years, working with the iPhone is a dream full of endless possibilities. As a platform, it feels more like console development. However, I’ve always been hesitant to do an iPhone project. I’ve been afraid of the day when the market becomes saturated. But, I was talked into it, and the shift to centralised distribution is really exciting. We are also excited about other platforms, and the move of the DS and PSP to digital distribution.

We are very excited about the possibilities for the future. We are overflowing with ideas, but you can probably expect to see some more driving titles somewhere. We also have to finish off the port of Pompom Games arcade space shooter, Space Tripper, that is long delayed, but fingers crossed, will be released not too long after Jet Car Stunts.

Andy Coates: There’s a lot of excitement for independent game developers at the moment, with all those new App Stores springing up all over the place – if you have quality product then it will sell. When I lived in the UK I was involved with a mobile game studio sometime around 2002. At that time it was very hard to get phone product accepted by the Telcos, it was a closed shop… thank God those days have ended now.

I’ve spent a lot of time and research building an optimal graphics engine on the iPhone. It’s really a nice piece of hardware to program for but things have to be done the correct way to get good performance, if you don’t then you will end up with a jerky pile of rubbish.

The plan after Jet Car Stunts comes out is to get Space Tripper finished off, then port everything to every other digital distribution channel. Once that is all out of the way we can start working on newer content.

By Touch Arcade

The post Developer Interview : True Axis appeared first on AppTrawler.

There are few good excuses for driving like a maniac, but having just robbed a bank is one of them. With a hostage in the back seat and a phalanx of wailing sirens on your tail, a few swerves and dodgy corners are inevitable.

In Car Jack Streets it’s not the post-felony frenzy that makes the driving erratic, but rather the controls. No matter how badly you may want to play in these streets, any desire to explore this great-looking sandbox adventure is flattened by an awkward interface.

A million dollars in gambling debts catch up with Randal in the opening moments of Car Jack Streets. At the behest of Randal’s Uncle Murphy, you’re thrust into a world of crime as a last resort to pay back mob boss Frankie.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, you have to fork over in one week more than most of us make in an entire year: $50,000 has to reach Frankie each week in order to absolve your debt.

Car Jack Streets plays in real-time, so a week translates to an actual seven day period. When you begin a new game, you first payment is due exactly seven days from when you started. $50,000 is quite a chunk of change and acquiring that much money means working your butt off in a variety of missions.

Jacking cars and dropping them off at a chop shop nets you quick cash, as do more involved violent actions like mowing down a group of gang bangers or serving as the getaway driver for a bank heist. There are also benign missions like protecting city hall from thugs, running a public bus route, and filling in for an ambulance driver. If variety is the spice of life then Car Jack Streets tastes like curry.

Accomplishing these missions, however, is difficult due to an obtuse interface. A GPS function enables you to set destinations via a list of locations, yet there’s no map of the city available. Setting the GPS prompts an arrow that points to your location instead, but it does so as the crow flies. Without a map for reference, you frequently get caught in dead ends until you learn the map.

One wrong turn can cripple your chances of completing a mission, turning a minor annoyance to a serious design flaw. While it’s understandable that a mini-map isn’t included as a measure to avoid cluttering the interface, a map of the city accessible from the GPS pause menu would be extremely helpful for identifying bridges and dead ends.

Control problems mar otherwise entertaining gameplay; specifically, the vehicle controls leave much to be desired. Instead of absolute steering in which pressing left or right on the buttons turns your car toward the left or right of the screen, the controls move your vehicle left and right relative to the position of the car.

In other words, if you’re heading south and press the right key you actually turn left because the car turns to its right – not the right side of the screen. As our own Rob Hearn remarked when he reviewed the mobile version, the awkwardness eventually passes, but Car Jack Streets‘s control scheme is likely to split opinion.

The option to use different control schemes would make it infinitely more playable for those who find the relative system counter-intuitive.

It’s not a game-breaker by any means, but along with the dodgy GPS it manages to take some of the sheen off Car Jack Streets‘s finish. As much as you may want it to hijack your spare time, this is a game that would have benefited from a tune up before hitting the streets.

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