Review: Asphalt 7: Heat
The visually impressive ‘Heat’ is the seventh entry in the mobile series and the ninth overall in the best-selling Asphalt franchise.
The in-race tutorial quickly familiarises you with the controls. Acceleration takes care of itself, tapping the left side of the screen initiates the brake and drift, whilst a right tap fires the nitro. Tilting the device to the left or right steers your vehicle. This may feel awkward at first on bigger devices such as the iPad, but after a lap or two it begins to feel natural and you soon find yourself zipping through courses at break-neck speed and drifting around hairpins becomes second nature.
The racing
If you’re even remotely familiar with racing games, you’ll know the drill. Win races, earn cash, buy upgrades and faster cars. A neat feature here though is the ability to rent cars on a per-race basis, because lets face it, who honestly wants to spend money on a Range Rover when you could be saving up for that Bugatti Veyron?
Vehicle handling is smooth and although there is variation between the tiers of motors on offer, driving always feels comfortable and under control. Daytime and night-time races span 15 tracks and venues across the globe including Paris, London, New York, Hawaii and more. Well known game types are all present and correct such as normal race, checkpoint and elimination.
As previously mentioned, Heat looks stunning. It’s a testament to the technical abilities of the developers that this edition to the series could easily sit side-by-side with early racers on current-gen consoles. It really is that good, especially on the Retina display. It absolutely flies too without so much as a hint of frame-rate drop. Not only does it look great but there’s an impressive roster of cars to buy, rent or loan. These range from the Mini Cooper S Coupé, to the Aston Martin V8 Vantage S, to the Lamborghini Aventador LP 700-4. And if that’s not enough to whet the appetite, there’s another fifty-seven to choose from.
The round-up
For an absolute steal at £0.69p, this really is the complete package. An extensive single player campaign, online multiplayer via Gameloft Live or locally via Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, Asphalt 7: Heat is a game that has set the bar for mobile app racing games.
8/10
Reviewed on iPad. Also compatible with iPhone 3GS and above and iPod Touch 3rd generation and above. Download it from the app store here.
Android version available 25 June 2012.
