“I feel the need… the need for speed!” If you are a fan of planes that move at high speeds, then you are probably familiar with the shared quote from Maverick and Goose in the movie Top Gun. Maverick, played by Tom Cruise and Goose, played by Anthony Edwards, both enjoyed flying planes at ridiculous speeds. Roadhouse Interactive and Red Bull Media House give you the same opportunity in their latest project, Red Bull Air Race the Game. It is now available to download in the Play Store.
The Red Bull Air Race World Championship is an international competition wherein speed and precision are requirements to win. The game begins with a good tutorial. It goes over the basics of flying the plane and the rules involved when racing. There are a fair amount of rules in this sport, but the tutorial makes it simple enough for you to jump into the game and begin racing. The races are broken up into different competitions. There is a world map that allows you to travel throughout the world to race at different venues. My first impression is that the game has quite a bit of depth and plenty of different race venues and types of races that you will keep you busy for a while.
“In Red Bull Air Race – The Game, players take virtual control of the planes used in the Red Bull Air Race – the fastest, most agile aerobatic planes from Zivko, MX, Extra and Red Bull’s own Corvus Racer – and compete on the actual 2014 Abu Dhabi, Malaysia, and the spectacular Royal Ascot Track. In all, the game has over 1500 different events and races, and non-stop tournaments will have players competing in local challenges and ultimately for the coveted spot atop the worldwide leaderboard.” -Roadhouse nteractive/Red Bull Media House
The control options in the game include tilt or a virtual D-Pad, with the addition of a throttle control. The game moves at quite a rapid pace, and maneuvering through air gates is not necessarily easy, but makes for a thrilling experience. If you pass through the air gates at the right place you are awarded points. If you hit an air gate, you get a penalty which ultimately takes away from your final score. During the real championship, penalties are assigned for flying to high through a gate, hitting a gate, insufficient or no smoke and deviating from the course to name a few of the penalties that affect your score. The planes travel at amazing speeds, so providing that sense of speed in the game is important. They have achieved that, while at the same time, providing good graphics and a slick user interface.
Red Bull Air Race-The Game is a free-to-play title. As you are playing the game, you receive coins based on how well you fly. You then use your coins to fix your plane, hire additional techs to work on your plane, as well as painting and upgrading your plane or planes in your hangar. The game is integrated with Google Game Play Services. There are 50 achievements to obtain and there are leaderboards. You can also create an Air Race Account using your personal email or, if you don’t mind linking your FaceBook account, you can do that so you can play against your friends.
The one thing I have noticed is that the game requires an internet connection for connecting to leaderboards. You do have the ability to play offline. However, there were a few times when I tried to play the game and it never connected, so I was unable to start a game. It also got hung up when trying to upload my score. Hopefully there will be an update to fix this problem. The game was recently released, so I do not know if it is a device specific problem or more widespread. It happened on my phone and my tablet. Don’t let that keep you from trying out the game. You can tell that Roadhouse Interactive and Red Bull Media House have worked hard to produce a game that accurately depicts the experience of flying in the Red Bull Air Race World Championship.
