Game review: Horror Racing - iPhone / iPod Touch

Horror Racing is a top-down arcade-style racing game. Think Super Sprint meets Wacky Races with a slight horror theme.

Despite its name the game is very low on frights. There are no limbs being mangled in horrific crashes. Instead the horror part of the title seems to refer to the cartoon characters in the game, though there isn’t really anything terrifying about them. Imagine a class of six-year-olds drawing pictures of monsters – the characters here are what they would come up with.

The game features a selection of 15 tracks, most of them must be unlocked, which set you racing around mildly spooky settings in a collection of crazy vehicles.

The courses aren’t really worth shouting about. They all look a bit like they’ve been designed on an Etch-A-Sketch, lacking a little bit of variety and creativity.

Seen from an isometric perspective, the tracks feature lots of straights broken up by tight turns. There are not really any memorable features on any of them. On the plus side, nice use of colouring and scenery creates a suitably ghoulish, deathly atmosphere in the game. A rocking soundtrack also helps the game along.

Overall the graphics are pretty good, although they lack a bit of finish and finesse against other iPhone/iPod games. The cars in particular look a little low-budget.

There are five characters to play as (with two more unlockable on completion of the championship mode), and all their cars look and behave slightly differently.

The cars can be upgraded during the game using money won in races to improve their engine, armour and weapons.

Weapons? Oh yes, there are weapons in the game.

If you can’t out-manoeuvre your opponents with your driving skills then you can blast them instead using a machine gun, rocket launcher or mines.

There are also special abilities which can be activated during races, including being able to shoot flames out of your car and zap rivals with lightning.

Each of the four racers, including you, has a health bar which depletes with each hit. Once completely out of health the car explodes and loses its driver a few seconds while it recovers.

There are championship, skirmish and quick race modes in Horror Racing, which nicely vary up the gameplay and extend its longevity.

The controls in Horror Racing are its biggest issue.

Cars auto-accelerate so all you need to take care of is steering.

Controlling your vehicle is done via a steering wheel in the bottom-right corner of the screen. You move it around in a circular motion with your finger, with a little arrow on the edge setting the direction for your car.

I had some real issues with the steering when I first started out. Sometime I couldn’t get my car going in the right direction, other times when it came to cornering my car would turn in completely the opposite way to what I intended.

I’ve just about mastered the steering now but even having got used to how it works it still feels too fiddly and takes away some of the undoubtedly large amount of fun contained in the game.

I’d like to see some refinements to the controls in a future update, or at least some other steering options introduced. Otherwise the game will never be as fun as I think it could be.

Putting my control niggles aside it is really good to see an old-school top-down racer for the iPhone/iPod. Though thanks to the dodgy steering Horror Racing doesn’t quite fulfil its potential at this stage, it is still an enjoyable game which provides some quirky, lightweight racing action that should keep players entertained to Halloween and hopefully beyond.

Horror Racing is developed by NewFX Games and published by Chillingo.

Verdict: 6.5 out of 10 – An offbeat sort of racing game which doesn’t set any new standards in thrills or frights but is still good fun to play in quick bursts, despite slightly frustrating controls.