Rocket Racing League

Wouldn’t it be brilliant if they composed a multi-discipline Mega Racing League to determine the best driver in the world?

One where the finest drivers across each discipline – F1, Rallying, Moto GP, Touring Car, NASCAR and so on – convened for a year long racing season that involved events in each discipline.

It’s wishful thinking, of course. The sheer amount of money, cajoling and organisation that would be involved places the idea firmly into the realm of fantasy.

Whoever came up with the idea of Rocket Racing would seem to be living in a similar dream land. Getting million dollar rocket-powered planes to race at close proximity to both each other and the ground? Well, it’s a good idea for a video game.

The scary thing is, people have ploughed millions of dollars into making it reality.

Part of the concept for the Rocket Racing League is to have video game ties-ins that let you race 'against' the real life pilots as the events happen.

This iPhone game doesn’t offer that ability, but it does offer an idealised prototype of what the organisers would like the fledgling sport to resemble (including a rather fantastical space-bound climax).

It also happens to be a rather nice twist on the power-up strewn kart racer.

It’s worth pointing out early on, though, that RRL does not offer an accurate approximation of real flight. Not that I’m a qualified pilot, but I doubt that any plane can hit the brakes and slow to walking speed in order to make a tight turn.

Rather, the developer (also called Rocket Racing) has opted to take liberties with flight physics and serve up a tight, responsive racing game – something that resembles Raging Thunder as much as F.A.S.T.

This means that the standard racing levels play very well indeed. The idea is to race around each set course against three opponents. Swooping through consecutive blue gates (using the accelerometer to steer) gets you points, as does finishing in a decent position.

You'll occasionally need to weigh up the pros and cons of missing a few gates in order to make up a few places.

You'll also be tempted to stray away from the set course in order to pick up one of the rubies dotted around each level. These prevent your opponents from using boost for a few vital seconds, which can represent a major speed penalty.

So important is this boost ability, in fact, that missing one of the fuel top-ups littered around the tracks can mean the end of your challenge for first place. A successful race will involve your thumb pressed firmly on the 'boost' button for most of the duration.

Unfortunately, the controls come somewhat unstuck in the arena-like 'Arcade Track' stages. These require you to collect rubies at various locations and altitudes, but the controls feel simultaneously twitchy and restrictive.

You tend to overlook the inherent twitchiness of the 'steering' in the relatively funnelled main races. But here, when you want to swoop around gracefully and make nimble turns in close proximity to cliffs and trees, it feels a tad clunky.

The restrictiveness I mentioned comes into play when you try to manoeuvre during a steep dive. It seems to be a common difficulty in such accelerometer-controlled flight games, but it's really highlighted here.

And don’t even bother trying to execute a barrel roll or loop de loop.

Such deficiencies are softened greatly by the generosity of the overall package. As well as a healthy and varied Career mode, you can take part in Beat the Best, which pitches you against a ghost representative of your best time for each course.

More interesting, though, is the multiplayer mode, which includes both Bluetooth and wi-fi play. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find anyone playing on the servers at the time this review was written, so we can’t bring you any impressions.

Hopefully word will spread about what a decent and original racer RRL is, and the social element – like the real event – will finally get off the ground.

Even if it doesn’t, though, Rocket Racing League is a fine alternative to the reams of arcade and kart racers on the App Store.