Welcome Time Wasters!
My gaming adventures this week brought me back to my smartphone. I know I said I’ve been trying to stay away from it lately, but it’s kinda hard to do in this day and age. Fortunately for me, I’ve found a pretty decent way to waste some time with Built for Speed.
Built for Speed is a racing game for mobile devices that may be a little different than what players are expecting. See, this is a top-down racing game. There’s not a lot of noteworthy racing games like this to begin with (Micro Machines for the SNES is the first one to come to mind), and the genre mostly goes unnoticed. However, Built for Speed is worth a look.
The controls in Built for Speed are a bit difficult to get the hang of. Each side of the screen supplies power to either the left or right tires. This means that players will have to press down on both sides of the screen to move forward, but then will have to left off of one side to turn. It is really weird at first, but works well after a few races. The biggest problem is staying away from the game for a couple of days and then jumping back in. The controls just aren’t natural and it takes time to readjust even after just a short absence.
Despite the problems with the controls, Built for Speed offers a solid racing experience. Players can take on different leagues to level up their characters and move on to more races. They play these races against other players, which is much better than just taking on the computer. There are also a few different bosses to race against and beating them earns the player their car.
There are actually a lot of different cars to chose from in Built for Speed. Each car also has three stats that players can upgrade with money they get from winning races. These stats are speed, control and grip. Different cars also perform better on different types of terrain, which means players need to play attention to what type of course they will be on when selecting a race. Cars also come in different classes, and the higher the class, the better the base stats of the car. There are also also different paint jobs available for each color to give them a more custom flair.
The main point of Built for Speed is racing to earn money and buying better cars. However, it also has a track editor. This allows the player to create their own custom tracks for other players to race on. Players get a certain amount of pieces to create tracks with, but can buy more with money they get from races. A player’s track will also earn them money when others race on them.
Built for Speed also allows players to join up and form teams. Each player’s progress in the game and in different racing leagues adds up to give the team is ranking. There’s also support for multiple different languages and some of the top teams in the game are players in different parts of the world representing their home countries.
You know what else is great about Built for Speed? The lack of ads. Sure, there are ads in the game, but they are completely optional. Watching ads gets players extra money in the game, or tickets they can use for special purchases, but that’s it. There aren’t even banner ads at the top or bottom of the screen. I will forever compliment a game that handles ads in this way.
The visuals in Built for Speed are a mix of 2D and 3D. The cars and environments when racing are all in 3D and aren’t bad looking for a mobile game. However, the characters and menus are all 2D sprite art. It’s a nice combination that makes for a solid appearance on a smartphone.
Audio in Built for Speed is great. The game has a solid of mix of upbeat music that goes well with racing and is entertaining to listen to in menus. It’s honestly a step above the average music in a mobile game. There’s also great sound effects, and a bit of voice acting for the countdown at the start of a race.
Overall, Built for Speed is a great racing game for mobile devices. It’s not perfect, but players that can get past the unusual controls will find good way to waste some time. This is only further helped by the above-average visuals and audio in the game.
Built for Speed earns 3.5 GiN Gems out of 5!