Game Reviews

Asphalt 6: Adrenaline

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Asphalt 6: Adrenaline

Kudos to whichever game developer first decided that simply racing fast cars around a track wasn’t enough.

Whether you mark the beginning of the 'extreme' racer ethic at Burnout or Mario Kart, it’s undeniable that it makes things a lot more interesting.

Whoever it was responsible for this shift in tack, I think we can safely assume it wasn’t Gameloft.

With Asphalt 6: Adrenaline, the infamous dev continues its pattern of uninventive yet perfectly enjoyable clones of bigger franchises.

Handle with car

The racing experience in Asphalt 6: Adrenaline on Xperia Play is aggressive, drift-heavy, and underhand. Across the 12 tracks, you’re encouraged to boost as often as possible, skid wildly when necessary, and eliminate your competitors in Burnout-style takedowns whenever you get the chance.

Such a busy and demanding conceit could easily have overwhelmed other driving sims, yet Asphalt 6: Adrenaline's spot-on car physics, handling, and controls alleviate any concerns.

There are the occasional moments following a fender bender, where your - and not your opponent's - motor is left unexpectedly wrecked, though most of the time collisions play out exactly as you'd imagine.

Drifting round corners, meanwhile, produces a satisfying feeling: nothing goes wrong so long as you maintain a good speed and full control over the vehicle.

Here’s a wheely overused pun

The driving controls are naturally more intuitive on the Xperia Play than they were on the original iPhone and Android versions, whose on-screen steering wheel and pedals setup itself proved more than adequate.

But for a racer as fast and flippant as this, nothing can beat the sturdy, responsive directional buttons on Sony Ericsson's handset.

The touchpad is less impressive, though surplus to requirements if you stick to the good old D-pad. The L and R triggers, used for breaking and boosting respectively, are equally welcome additions.

Penalty points

Asphalt 6: Adrenaline still looks as pretty as the day it was released, and the HD graphics make this one of the best-looking racers on the Android Market.

Shame those production values don’t extend to the earsplitting audio. The music is a sickening amalgamation of dance beats that make boy racers of the world seem like over-cultured fans of Tchaikovsky.

Worse than that, the female announcer is a burden nobody should be forced to bear. Thank the makers, then, that there exists the option to shut her up completely, along with the soundtrack.

Aside from these minor complaints, Asphalt 6: Adrenaline is another unashamedly unoriginal Gameloft title with the mechanical prowess to make you shrug your shoulders and enjoy it anyway.

Asphalt 6: Adrenaline

It’s not the wheel thing. But who cares? Asphalt 6: Adrenaline handles very well and costs you nothing at all, so take it for a spin
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Brendan Caldwell
Brendan Caldwell
Brendan is a boy. Specifically, a boy who plays games. More specifically, a nice boy who plays many games. He often feels he should be doing something else. That's when the siren call of an indie gem haunts him. Who shall win this battle of wills? Answer: not Brendan.