If you enjoy futuristic high speed racers like F-Zero or WipeOut, then you’ll want to check out AG Drive.  Hundreds of years in the future, mankind has mastered anti-gravity technology, and high speed races over twisty roller coaster tracks is the sport of the future.  AG Drive is a silky-smooth, super-fast racing game that you can download on iOS devices (reviewed on iPad here).

You have several types of races you can compete in, and the more you finish, the more that become available.  There are single track races, time trials, elimination rounds where the last place gets taken out every 20 seconds, challenges where you must reach a top speed, cup races across consecutive tracks, and much more.  There are also shorter events for if you only have a couple of minutes of playtime, too.

When you win races and level up, you’ll earn coins.  Spend the coins to buy new cars, paint jobs, or upgrade the vehicles you have.  The game may seem pretty hard at first, but just try some of the smaller events to upgrade your racer, and then it’ll be a bit easier once you level up your engine and steering a time or two.  The only other problem is that it takes a lot of money to buy new cars and higher upgrades, so you’ll be replaying the same events for a while.  Luckily there are plenty of things to do.

Controls are simple, but steering by tilting the device takes a little getting used to at first.  I do like the meter in the middle that tells you how far you are tilting, though.  Tap the right side of the screen and hold to put on the gas, and the left side is for the brakes.  In the middle of the left side is a meter that fills as you race.  When it is full, you can press it for a turbo boost.  You can upgrade your racer so your boost meter fills faster, too.

The best parts of the game are the visuals and audio.  The game runs at a smooth 60 frames per second, and goes really fast!  The techno soundtrack is pretty catchy, too.  Definitely a console quality racer that’ll please fans of similar titles like F-Zero or Wipeout.

Kid Factor:

Nothing too violent here.  If you fall off the track, you don’t even see your car explode.  Reading skill is helpful for the text, and younger gamers might get frustrated with the more difficult racing challenges.  And I think I heard a couple of curse words in the lyrics to some of the songs, but that’s it.

Tags: Game Reviews