Top 5 best car combat games on mobile (2010)

For some people, autosport only becomes interesting when things go wrong. For such people, the thrill of watching a finely calculated overtaking manoeuvre is easily topped by the delight of seeing a multi-car pile-up at the first corner.

The same sub-group exists within the realm of video games - the type who couldn’t give a stuff about gear ratios and braking points, but simply want the thrill of ramming an opponent into oncoming traffic at 100mph. I have to guiltily put my hand up and admit to belonging to this group.

Fortunately, there are plenty of mobile game developers making games to meet our Neanderthal yearnings. Here’s five of the best.

These are games that, while varying in approach, all share a love of automotive destruction, and who place aggressive play at least equal to driving well.

Of all the games on this list, Demolition Derby is the one most purely concerned with destruction. As the title suggests, your sole concern here is battering your opponents into submission.

This is achieved in the time-honoured fashion of driving into them repeatedly until their energy bar depletes and they blow up. There’s a surprising level of strategy involved, as you calculate which part of your car is damaged the least, and use that as the sharp end of your attacks.

Demolition Derby is certainly big dumb fun, but with an involving upgrade element and a tactically demanding repair system, it’s not quite as dumb as you might expect.

Arguably the premier car-smashing series on the consoles, few could see how EA could possibly make the formula work on mobile. But work it does, with Burnout Mobile distilling the big-budget Burnout gameplay to its bare essentials.

You race along a straight stretch of road against a single rival at a time, meeting one of four different criteria – most of which involve ramming cars off the road or into traffic. It’s simple, slick, and oh so gratifying.

By pulling the view out to a low-flying-bird’s eye perspective, EA has allowed for a smooth 3D engine and plenty of impressive special effects, such as slo-mo and screen-shaking explosions. Unmissable for all fans of digital carnage.

Just in case we were under the impression that fusing racing games with combat elements was a new idea, here’s a remake of Spy Hunter to set us straight.

While you take control of a speeding car, the idea here isn’t to race. The game plays rather like a hybrid of Burnout and a 2D shooter, in that the aim of the game is to shunt or shoot your rivals into submission.

This mobile version of Spy Hunter offers a faithful conversion of the 1983 arcade classic, as well as an enhanced version with much improved graphics and one or two improvements to the formula. Both versions, though, are well worthy of your attention.

Car Crash Racing zooms the view out and simplifies the game engine even further than Burnout Mobile, to the point that it begins to look like the sort of racer you would have been playing on your home computer twenty years ago.

There’s a good reason for this stripped back approach, though - it permits you to hare around tracks at break-neck speed, bashing multiple opponents into oblivion. The tracks are littered with obstacles and power-ups, so things invariably get very hectic very quickly.

Car Crash Racing might not be the prettiest game on this list, but it’s certainly one of the most action-packed.

Undoubtedly the most ambitious game on this list, Car Jack Streets offers a whole city to tear around in. Despite this open world template, and the ability to get out and walk, the focus is very much on automotive carnage.

You play as a kind of criminal errand boy, running tasks to pay off your debt to the Mafia. These tasks include driving an ambulance, a bus, or a taxi; delivering pizza; stealing cars; and taking part in proper races.

While the driving mechanics aren’t quite up to some of the other games on this list, Car Jack Streets’s unparalleled scope and variety makes it the ultimate car combat experience on mobile.