Asphalt 6: Adrenaline Review

Review of Asphalt 6: Adrenaline for the Blackberry PlayBook

Over the past few months, Gameloft have been releasing a few games onto the Blackberry Playbook and you know when Gameloft makes a game, that it is going to run beautifully and is going to take full advantage of the technology that is available to it. And Gameloft haven't held back with Asphalt 6, a brilliant driving game for anyone who is interested in an arcade driving simulation game.

First off we'll begin with a little back history on Asphalt. The Asphalt series is a arcade driving series that has grown from a basic mobile 2D mobile application inti arguably the leading 3D game on any mobile platform today. Asphalt 4 began it's debut on the iPhone and became a huge success due to it's graphics, easy-to-learn gameplay and deep content. Since then the series has grown and grown in popularity with new enhanced graphics every game and more cars and deeper customisation options. And with Asphalt 6, it's like no other driving game on the market today.

Okay, so when you begin the game you are given a short video showing some of the top cars that you can purchase in the game such as the Aston Martin 11-7, the Lamborghini Gallardo Supperlegera and the Ferrari 458 etc... After this little movie is finished you are brought to the elegant homescreen on which you can see a beautiful 3D view of your car in your garage and the different options: Career, Free Race, Garage, Multiplayer and More Games. They are all fairly self-explanatory to anybody has played racing games before. The "Career" option will take you into your Career which I will talk about later. The "Free Race" option lets you pick any of your cars bought in your career and choose any circuit and do a simple race without having to worry about ruining your career stats. "Garage" is a really nice feature in which you can walk around an enormous garage using fps controls and view your cars in 3D.. more like a car gallery than a garage; you can also change which cars are on view by clicking on the car then cycling to the car that you wish to preview in that spot. Back to the main menu and you have the "Options" button which is self-explanatory, in here you can change settings for the visuals, sounds, controls and languages.

Let's quickly brush over the career mode as this is the place you will spend 90% of your time when playing this game. When you begin the Career you are given three basic cars, one is clearly a better car than the others (the Nissan) and your objective is to gain stars from races to unlock cars and money from these races also to pay for these cars. I counted that there were roughly 45 cars in the game which is an enormous amount of cars if you consider that this game is for a tablet, not a console and also that a game like this has managed to get the licenses for this amount of cars (except Porsche for which they call them "RUF".) Stars have a simple scoring system, if you come firdt you get three stars and then to gain the other two stars you have secondary objectives, such as knock-out a certain amount if cars or collect a certain amount of drift points. You are given twelve different cities to race in, which I found to get more fun the later you unlock them! You are also given eleven leagues in which to participate in. There are seven different race types to do, all of which are fun and keep you on your toes with different objectives. One thing I noticed was when progressing through the games, it didn't matter how far on the race was, the cars you race against are based on which car you choose, not on how far you are into the career; however, the secondary objectives do get harder as you progress.

Okay, so that wasn't exactly a quick summary of the Career section, but let's get on to the presentation and gameplay of Asphalt 6. Simply, it's incredible! The menus are responsive and the animations are nice and slick. The 3D presentation on this game is outstanding with lighting on the cars being beautiful, what also amazes me is that when panning around the cars and zooming in and out, it is flawless. There's no lag at all when doing these flashy gestures that a couple of years ago weren't even possible on tablets. The gameplay in Asphalt is very smooth as well, no lag when in a race and it's quite spectacular to see a Bugatti Veyron flying through the air collecting stars with cars racing beside you and the scenery flying by. There are some points in this game where you will laugh to yourself at how your 7" tablet can be making these beautiful things happen on your screen.

All-in-all, Asphalt 6: Adrenaline is by far the nicest driving application you will get for the Playbook, with having the option for controls that don't involve the accelerometer and the Career mode being a little easier, I believe it is a better than than the Need For Speed game that comes with the Playbook. The presentation of this game is beautiful and there is no doubting that Gameloft can produce beautiful games for mobile devices. I would definitely recommend this game for anyone t the moment, especially considering it is only a £1 in the Blackberry App World.

Presentation - 8.7
Graphics - 8.9

Gameplay - 8.8
Sound - 8.1
Lasting Appeal - 9.1
OVERALL - 8.7