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If you’re looking for a racing game that stands out from the crowd and is highly addicting, Slingshot Racing could be the perfect fit. With a style that harkens back to the days when arcade games were popular, but also reminiscent of the Angry Birds series, Slingshot Racing will leave you wanting more.
So, does this game have the potential to be as popular as Cut the Rope or Temple Run? Read on to decide if you’ll be sleeping at the wheel or racing to the finish line!
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Turning the First Corner
The concept of Slingshot Racing is simple. There is a tower located at each corner on the track. Tap the screen anywhere to deploy your car’s hook and connect with a tower. When you do, you’ll be slingshotted around the corners to gain speed and better your line (the path of your car). The game automatically decides which tower to use based on where you are on the track.
Tapping as you go around corners will slingshot you to increase your speed and help you set up the best route around the track.
The gameplay is incredibly simple. In fact, it’s so simple that kids as young as eight years old would probably understand how to play, but it does take time to master. As you play the difficulty increases pretty quickly. I felt challenged as soon as I moved from levels that were simple ovals to more complex shapes that required careful attention and faster maneuvering.
The physics of each slingshot is very well done, even to the point where I found myself getting upset about slamming into walls, but knowing it was all my fault. To give you an idea of the difficulty, I finished first out of four on my first attempt at racing other cars. However, as of this writing, I’m still bitter about not being able to hone my skills for jumping snowmen. Don’t ask.
You don’t always need to slingshot your car on every tower, and if you find one corner is giving you trouble, you’re probably better off not using your slingshot.
The Second Lap
There are a number of different types of gameplay to add some variation and keep the game interesting as well. There are courses you race by yourself against the clock and others you race against competitors for the top spot. Sometimes you have to collect cogs on the track as fast as possible, and in other levels you have to take the top spot to avoid being eaten by “the chomper.” The longer I played, the more gameplay styles I discovered.
As you get further along, new challenges are unlocked like collecting the cogs as fast as possible.
Just as you think you’re getting your driving style perfected, you begin to encounter jumps and obstacles, which adds a whole new dimension. You are given some options to help you as the game goes on, though. Gather power ups like Snow Storm and drive over the boosters to get better times. Just like Angry Birds and many other games, you’re trying to score three cogs on each level to get the best score before moving on. I found it just as addicting as Angry Birds, too.
While some levels took quite a long time to achieve three cogs, I just couldn’t put the game down until I did it. In fact, it took me about eight tries just to get three cogs on the very first level. I enjoyed the mix of levels where you had to get every lap just right, and those where you could make mistakes at the beginning and still catch back up if you run the rest of the race well enough.
When going under an overpass an outline of your car appears so you don’t lose track of where you are.
Social Racing
Once you’ve perfected your slinging technique there are a couple options available if you want to crush your friends. First, you can compete with them through the standard approach using Game Center.
If you want an intense experience, up to four players can grab a corner of the screen to compete in person.
If instead, you’re feeling up for an intense and exhilarating battle royale, you can play up to ten levels in a local tournament. Each player grabs a corner of the screen and then you choose how many laps you’ll race, what direction you’ll go and if you want to race during the day or night.
Also, for those moments when you have an overwhelming need to tell everyone about how awesome you are, the developers of Slingshot Racing have made it easy for you. At the end of each level you’re shown your overall time and best lap time, which you can then share with your friends on Facebook or Twitter with the tap of a button.
Great Where It Counts
There were a few areas where I found Slingshot Racing lacking, but none of them where important enough to be deal breakers for me. For example, unlike other racing games, there was very little customization available. You have four different choices for your vehicle color, but other then that, there’s not much. You can’t even change your name, so unless you sign into Game Center you’ll simply be known by an incredibly creative alias like “Red Player.” Also, I wasn’t very impressed with the soundtrack.
Other than these minor details, the game really delivers, which is saying a lot for a price tag of only $0.99. The arcade style graphics are pretty good and there are so many levels that you’ll be occupied for awhile. Best of all, Slingshot Racing does a good job of providing a challenge, while not being so impossible that you never want to play again.
Are you a fan of racing games? What do you think about the slingshot twist on an old concept?