Race Team Manager

I imagine it's difficult to resist the urge to draw comparisons between Race Team Manager and a certain other rather popular racing management sim that's come out recently.

But aside from the racing and the managing they're actually quite different.

Where Motorsport Manager is all about the strategy of managing a team of drivers and mechanics, Race Team Manager is a bit lighter, and it's based around a series of what could best be described as mini-games.

The crazy thing is it actually sort of works.

The bulk of your time in Race Team Manager will still be spent in menus. You'll have drivers to hire, fire, and train, mechanics to deal with, sponsors to please, a fair number of cars to purchase and upgrade, and facilities to build in order to unlock more upgrades or give your cars boosts.

Races themselves are depicted as a line-up of rankings along with text windows explaining what's happening on the track.

Several times during a race one of a few different events might occur, requiring you to get a bit more involved. This could be anything from tilting your device to steer around a corner to tracing a safe path through a pile-up.

These little interactive sections go a long way towards offsetting potential boredom.

As much as I actually quite like the bizarre combination of hands-off and hands-on action, it can be a bit problematic to react to the various events quickly enough. That and the tilt controls for overtaking feel way too sensitive.

Another thing that can be irritating is just how much of the race is out of your hands. Performance in some of these mini-games (such as avoiding crashes) rely heavily on driver skill, and if he's not good enough you'll be at a severe disadvantage.

Despite those problems, Race Team Manager keeps pulling me in. Its combination of simulation elements and simplified interactive slices is just enough to keep me interested in each race.

I don't know if I'd call it a perfect balance, but it's definitely a successful one.