Reviews

Need for Speed dominates the console sales charts every year, so why not try and copy the franchise with a similar street racing game and call it Need for Drift (Need for Drifting on some mobiles)? To further the selling point for the game, add 3D to the title because 3D graphics are oh-so-rare in the 2D dominated mobile games industry! Moaning over, I guess I should tell you if the game is any good or not!

True to its title, Need for Drift is a 3D street racing game. There's a quick race and a career mode option, Career is the mode of choice if you want to unlock new cars and try to actually achieve something. A race is divided into two stages - in the first stage you need to drive to the finish line without crashing the car. This is easier said than done, but do it successfully and you'll progress to stage 2 to compete against an opponent. In stage 2, you then need to get to the finish line in first place without taking damage, winning the race will win you your opponents car.

Like most mobile racing games, accelerating is automatic, leaving you to solely focus on steering and breaking. The car automatically decides it wants to burn along at high speed, and as the roads are designed for plenty of drifting expect your thumb to be glued to the brake button. You can take your thumb off the brake if you're feeling daring and want to gain a fast time, but this will take a lot of practice as the game isn't so kind.

The damage ratio is extremely low and bumping your car three or four times (depending on the impact) will result in race over. This will happen all too frequently as other cars and corners tend to pop up out of nowhere to aid you in failing miserable. This could be forgiven if there was an on-screen radar to warn you of imminent sharp turns, but there isn't, meaning a lot of luck and track memorising is required. In each stage, the innocent traffic is always encountered in the same spots, giving you that opportunity to plan out the route for the second, third and fourth attempts.

Anyhow, this game sells itself on your need for drifting, so frequent sharp turns are expected. The problem is, the drifting isn't really that convincing. The physics simply aren't there to pull off drift turns, instead the car is magnetised to the road and if you attempt to pull off a long drift around a bend it straightens itself up and fights against it (or you fly into the wall). Drifting is supposed to be the main aim of the game, but in fact the real aim seems to be not to crash, with no drift race objectives or trials. If the game was called Need for Not Crashing, then I wouldn't be complaining.

You begin the career mode with one car available, while completing stage two of the first race will unlock a second (and much faster) car. The game has five car models in total, which won't take long to unlock once you've mastered the 6 available tracks. Each car looks different and they are very nicely detailed, unfortunately there is no distinguishable difference in the handling between any of them. The only difference is the speed, therefore faster cars require a lot more brake loving.

The cars and night-time cities look nice for a 3D mobile games and the detail is enough to rival any other 3D racing game on this format. OK, so the physics aren't realistic at all, with little to no emphasis on drifting and it's hard to judge corners, but the game is actually quite fun and you'll forgive the many flaws and try many times to master those tracks.