Reckless Racing by EA is one of those games where you go, “WOW!” On an iPhone 4 with Retina display, the graphics and visual details are awesome. In addition to that, the gameplay is fun and entertaining. An iPad only version is also available.
Reckless Racing features six different characters with different cars. From Cletus with his military vehicle to Floyd with his truck, it offers a lot of variety in terms of driving experience. There’s both a single and a multiplayer mode. When you are playing alone, you can choose between three different game modes: Dirty Ralley, Hot Lap and Delivery.
Dirty Ralley lets you race with the car you chose against those five other cars on six different tracks. It’s doesn’t get boring since you can choose between difficulty — bronze, silver and gold. In addition to that, you can also race those six tracks in reverse.
Hot Lap lets you race against the clock on a track with a car of your choice. The interesting part is that you will be also racing against a “ghost” car — the one that currently has the fastest time on that particular track.
In game mode Delivery, you have to pick up goods and deliver them to a destination as fast as possible. The faster you go, the more money you can earn. There’s traffic to keep an eye on and a trailer attached to your car. You can also choose between the six different cars and the length of the game in minutes.
Reckless racing comes with five interesting control options. From using the accelerometer, where you have to tilt to steer, accelerate, and break, to Tank mode, where you only have to tap left and right — there’s an option for everyone. However, I found only the Standard controls usable. I can imagine that other players might find the challenge of tilting their phone interesting.
The music and sounds of the game are great as well. It’s fun listening to the country style banjo music, while racing the dirty tracks. Of course there are sound effects, for instance when you collide with another car or run over a cliff. The details put into the game are amazing: you can hit garden fences, rocks and drive through puddles. The cars behave differently, depending on the surface — you slide more in turns on sand than on asphalt.
After all the positives, there are downsides: Multiplayer mode and leaderboards! Reckless Racing doesn’t feature bluetooth or WiFi multiplayer. You need to go through EA’s servers in order to race your friends. That’s a real pain, because those servers are overloaded and lagging, basically making multiplayer not an option. In order to share your racing results online, you need to setup an account with EA — another account! Why not integrate Game Center or one of the other solutions out there? It might not seem like such a big deal, but it would be nice to offer an alternative for sharing your results.
Overall Reckless Racing is an amazing game, which offers fun and entertainment in those ten minutes when you are waiting for your bus. Although EA could improve on the multiplayer implementation and leaderboard integration, it’s still a must-have!
