Formula Force Racing speeds upside down in beautiful cities
Formula Force Racing is a high-speed arcade racer that tests the skill of racing fans. The game has three modes to choose from: time trial, championship, and single race.
Standard for most racing games, time trial mode lets the player practice on their own with a goal of beating their best time. Championship mode let the player pick a vehicle from among four different classes (super mini, muscle car, super car, and formula force) and take it through seven different tracks. Finally, single race mode is one track against the computer.
Each of the modes gives the player a chance to compete on tracks in stunning cities. The racetracks have colorful and vibrant backgrounds. This is especially apparent in the Korea track, set at night with neon lighting effects. Each stage is also filled with catchy electronica music.
The controls for the game are fairly easy to grasp and you get to choose either tilt or button controls, great for players who like options. However, the responsiveness of both these inputs was less than satisfying. I liked the button control more when I needed better control over when to push other cars, but the tilt controls were more fluid. Both were hard to control to some extent, with delayed input response or easy spinouts.
Having played other racing games before, I associated a pedal symbol for accelerating, but in this game it is the break. This was strange at first but I was able to get used to it. The user interface in the game could also be improved for readability as the font was very small, making it hard to see time indicators. It was easier to focus on the nice backgrounds and AI. The AI vehicles have rubber-banding which makes for a more challenging race. On the other hand it's annoying losing if you are overtaken at the last second by an AI vehicle.
Tracks in the game have a lot of curves and tunnels, which encouraged me crash into the AI vehicles as a way to get past the competition. It is really easy to get on the walls and flip your vehicle over. It looks awesome when it works, but most of the time it failed. Sometimes, the vehicle would not reset correctly when I hit a curve and flipped over. I had to do a 180-degree just to get back in the race, which slowed me considerably.
There are a few other downsides to the game. There are no in-race sound options. Instead, you have to exit to the main menu to change the volume. Also, unlocking modes and cars is not clear. There is an option to pay to unlock all of the championships and car classes, but it greatly lowers replayability.
I would still recommend this game to racing fans who want hours of entertainment and enjoy a challenge. The art is beautiful in even the simplest tracks and even more amazing in other complex ones. For US $0.99, it is worth the download.
