Game Reviews

Wrong Way Racing

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Wrong Way Racing
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| Wrong Way Racing

Even by mobile gaming standards Wrong Way Racing is a simple proposition. That's part of its charm, and also the reason a lot of people will skip over the one touch arcade experience.

When the tiny computer in your pocket can run the likes of Infinity Blade III, why would you bother with something that looks like it could run on a watch?

The short answer is that it's an awful lot of fun. The long answer is the next three hundred or so words.

Race day

The game is essentially a single screen. There's a grey loop of track, four cars, and a play button. You control the black car, and you're driving one way around the track. The other three cars are all zooming the opposite way.

There are two lanes and you switch between them with a tap. You're trying to complete as many laps as possible, dodging past the other cars as all the vehicles get quicker and quicker.

It's very much the product of a post-Flappy Bird App Store. Unflinchingly cruel, playable by anyone with a digit to spare, and focused entirely on chasing your own high score and those of your friends.

Wrong Way Racing is a far more solid proposition that Dong Nguyen's frustration-fest though, with a more reliable core that's about testing your reflexes and coordination rather than patience and perseverance.

Like Super Hexagon and the minimalist twitch genre it spawned, this is a distillation of pure gameplay. And while it might not have the aesthetic that set those games apart, there's a compulsion that pushes you to drive again and again.

Tap the dash

Wrong Way Racing isn't going to be for everyone. There's no depth to it, and a sharpness to the tap-tap gameplay that means your first few goes will result in piddling little scores that aren't worth mentioning.

Nothing changes, nothing develops, and the only flourish the game has is the crackly pixel explosion that greets each and every one of your hundreds of deaths.

But if you're looking for a brief, stabby little arcade game that won't take up much space, and that you can play from the second it's downloaded, Wrong Way Racing isn't a bad bet.

Wrong Way Racing

A short sharp burst of arcade fun, Wrong Way Racing doesn't have much to it, but what's there is twitchy fun
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.