Gamer reviews for Rocket Cars

Reinventing the Wheel

When it comes to mobile gaming, I am most uncomfortable with the racing genre. Most of the times I am bothered by the controls. The majority of the racing games primarily uses the gyroscope to control your car. There are others with on-screen buttons, but they are alternative control schemes. The developers of mobile racing games choose tilt controls as the primary, if you want to play excel, you better master such. Tilt controls are inherently not horrible, however, it is difficult to play a game on a commute when you keep on moving your tablet or smartphone.

Rocket Cars seemed to be the perfect racing game, as if this one is catered to people like me. This game is a cart racer, arcade at heart, and playful in nature. This is not a racing simulation, this is a trippy ride of colorful coin collecting extravaganza.

This game is free, but there is an in-game app purchase system for car upgrades, coins, coin doublers (worth noting that this upgrade is permanent), infinite energy (highly recommended at $4.99, as it gives you non-stop gaming, no more waiting for the energy bar to refill so that you can play the game whenever you want) and gems. There are non-intrusive ads displaying a few times but you can remove them by purchasing any, I repeat, any of the boosters or packages offered by the game.

You control rocket cars across a circuit fill of obstacles, lava pits, traps, jumping platforms and pick-up weapons. There are over 60 different events, and surprisingly, these levels are very different from each other. Every track has a personality of its own.

Like every racing game out there, your only objective is to reach the finish line first, however, some of the levels, just need you to beat the clock. Kart racers are known for their frantic pace, and as usual, Rocket Cars offer nitro boosters for you to use. You can also opt to perform in the air stunts like backflips or barrel rolls for free boosting. As mentioned, there are also lots of weapons to fire at your opponents. You either collect coins, to upgrade your cars, or collect timers to extend your time, in the aforementioned beat the clock mode.

This game does not rely solely on the gyroscope. In fact, this game does not even have a tilt control option. You have a slide control, of which, you just have to slide your fingers on what direction you steer. The slide inverted, well, the slide control being inverted. Or the tap control, where virtual buttons are your friends.

This is one of the good looking games in the mobile platform, not because of its technical prowess, but the art direction is superb. Music is playful just like its gameplay. And the sound effects may be basic, but it fits.

Rocket Cars is one of the most generous free-to-play games out there. The game gifts three different boosters to use as a headstart, and these replenishes at a good rate. The packages are not expensive. New cars are not locked away from you, but they are unlock by progressing through the game. You can easily do everything without buying a single package because there are plenty of coins in the tracks. There is so much fun in it that you do not have to pay for progress. But you should, as a way of saying thanks to developer Illusion Labs.