Start your engines! Run without spending | Absolute Racing
Obviously this can be done in the title we are considering today: Absolute Racing, a game developed by Infinity Vector for the iOS and Android platforms. We will be dealing with a mobile game that however tries to get closer to the older brothers who inhabit home consoles. The impression we had already after a short time was that of finding ourselves in front of a decidedly freer title than other playable on portable platforms, especially from the point of view of playability.
Cars and racing
We are immediately greeted by a minimalist but elegant menu that showcases our car. From here we will be able to access the races, the vehicle shop, our personal garage, the customization menu, the shop or the options panel. The races are divided into single player challenges, temporary events and multiplayer competitions. Going to analyze the single player campaign, unfortunately, we realize that a real structured career is missing. Rather, there are collections of races that can be faced with specific vehicles and which must be unlocked by winning a certain number of medals.The Custom Race mode is available, the only one in which you will be able to compete with cars driven by the CPU and which for some strange reason seems unrelated to the rest of the single player challenges. Artificial intelligence seems to be quite effective and aggressive and for this reason it is a pity to see how it is basically dealing with races that have no influence on the player's progression. Then there is the driving school which, along the lines of Gran Turismo, offers a series of challenges of increasing difficulty aimed at improving the skills of the virtual driver. Here, however, there are no licenses to unlock but only medals to win which obviously range from bronze to gold.
Then there is the free race which is nothing more than the Custom Race without opponents. There are four containers of races of different difficulty that must be gradually unlocked: the competitions in question concern the production cars, the modified cars, the drift vehicles and the rally racing cars. It is then possible to compete with other human players online both in circuit races and in competitions dedicated to drift. In multiplayer races there are no collisions between users and unfortunately it should be noted that it is not possible to know the score scored by the opponents in the drift races.
Several circuits are available, including really existing tracks, urban scenarios and areas dedicated to off-road vehicles. There is also a good fleet of cars ranging from classic Japanese sports to American muscle to even land on the shores of McLaren's supercars. The cars can be bought, sold, stored in your garage and modified at will both in terms of aesthetics and performance. Of course, something more could be done on a visual level, especially in relation to the decals.
Each vehicle, however, has its own driveability and you can also perceive the difference between the cars based on the type of traction. There are some driving aids which, however, can be freely deactivated showing a decidedly rare simcade nature in a mobile environment that thrives on facilitations and annoying automatisms. It is even possible to activate the distinction between normal brake and hand brake. ABS can be deactivated, traction control can be adjusted and tire pressure can be adjusted. Not bad for a portable game.
On the other hand, the impacts between the vehicles and the surrounding elements, which are decidedly too light, could have been better treated. And speaking of impacts, a damage system for the cars is completely missing, both aesthetically and mechanically. The races are decidedly longer than the average and can even last a few minutes in the most extreme cases. Too bad only for the drift, not cared for in terms of bonuses and multipliers: in fact, only a calculation of the skid is performed with a possible combo for several consecutive drifts. Instead, the distance from obstacles or other factors that could change the overall evaluation are not taken into account.
Technique between highs and lows
At the audio level it must be said that who knows what great is not present. soundtrack: beyond a couple of background melodies for the menus and the usual song aimed at underlining the conclusion of an event, we always run in rigorous silence accompanied only by the noises of the cars. The rumble of the engines are not bad and are also suitably differentiated. Unfortunately, at times they seem to be reproduced in a cyclical manner, as if a large blender were running under the hood. The other sound effects are decent and can be listened to without problems.Graphically you are faced with a mix of ups and downs. While on the one hand there are cars depicted in a really good way and accompanied by pleasant reflections in real time, on the other hand we find environments that are not always up to par. In fact, if in some cases it is possible to appreciate a good quality of the structures and lighting, the extreme flatness of the elements present on the slope often catches the eye.
The vegetation is really sparse and the trees are mainly depicted like cardboard crossed between them. Furthermore, beyond the cars, nothing moves: there are no spectators, the sky is still, in short, everything remains absolutely static. The less refined settings are in particular the rally ones, flat empty and washed out, practically out of a game of the early 2000s. The smoke produced by the car is decent but nothing more, the use of motion blur is appreciable instead.
At least the performance of the title is pretty good, even on not very recent devices. However, we have noticed situations in which the game seems to get flooded, as if the memory had not been emptied well, and therefore it is necessary to restart the title to have good performances again both in the menus and in the races. Since we are on the subject it must be said that there are also some glitches, represented by the possibility of seeing beyond the limits of the 3D setting, by a strange representation of the car without wheels on certain occasions and by the flickering of the vehicle's shadow on the circuit rally set in Greece. It should also be noted that the Italian translation suffers from some shortcomings.
A mention of merit, however, goes to the replay and the photographic mode that allow you to enjoy the details of the vehicle or the highlights of the race with various options and different shots. Obviously, the roots of Assoluto Racing lie in the mobile market and there is therefore a shop that allows you to purchase useful credits to speed up the purchase and modification of the most powerful cars. Unfortunately, some vehicles can only be obtained through an unpleasant lottery which can only be accessed through the use of specific credits.
Beyond this it is still possible to earn the right amount of finance by completing the races proposed by the game. Just a pity, as I said at the beginning, that there is no real Career mode and you find yourself running randomly between various routes in search of increasingly powerful vehicles. Assoluto Racing is a game intended for those looking for a more realistic driving style while remaining in the mobile environment.
The title can be played with touch but will be appreciated more with the joystick, freely configurable in the race but not supported in the menus. Some things are missing, such as a line of trajectory in the race, now ubiquitous in driving games, or a more substantial single player offer, but there are others that are rarely found in games intended for portable devices. At this price it is therefore worth taking a look. However, this time too we are done. See you next month and as always remember that everyone can go fast, but only champions can go fast for free!
