Game Reviews

Adrenaline Rush Miami Drive

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Adrenaline Rush Miami Drive

Adrenaline Rush Miami Drive subscribes more to the Asphalt Overdrive school of arcade racing than Asphalt 8: Airborne.

That is, it's not really an arcade racer at all. It's an endless runner with cars.

Unfortunately, while it plays perfectly well, it's just as limited as Gameloft's recent diversion.

Welcome to Miami

Unlike Asphalt Overdrive, Adrenaline Rush Miami Drive is played in landscape view. Steering left and right past oncoming (or just plain slower) traffic is a matter of tapping the left and right sides of the screen.

In fact, in this way (and most others, actually) Adrenaline Rush Miami Drive is really closer in spirit and execution to Polarbit's three-year-old Reckless Getaway. Except it's not as good.

The roads here are fairly open, allowing you to nimbly weave between trucks and bollards, or lurch across to grab a power-up or line of coins.

There's also a familiar takedown system at play here, whereby you can send traffic spinning by barging them from the side. Hit them directly, however, and it's the end of your run.

Stalled

There's the usual garage of unlockable, faster cars, as well as purchasable boosts and a level-up system that gives you tasks to fulfil in batches of three.

In fact, just about the only slightly distinctive element of Adrenaline Rush Miami Drive is its presentation, which takes on a curious '70s blaxploitation pastiche feel. It's bright and bouncy enough, if a little forced.

That kind of reflects the game as whole. It promises to provide a fun, knock-about arcade racer, but ultimately disappoints by reverting to a run-of-the-mill endless runner template.

Adrenaline Rush Miami Drive

What promises to be a fun little arcade racer disappoints by falling back on too many generic endless runner tropes
Score
Jon Mundy
Jon Mundy
Jon is a consummate expert in adventure, action, and sports games. Which is just as well, as in real life he's timid, lazy, and unfit. It's amazing how these things even themselves out.