Mobile gaming more than anything is populated by many sub-genres of the top level genres that we normally associate with gaming. Because of the typical methods of control interface and presentation that are specific to the average mobile device, there are very specific smaller categories of gaming genres that play well on mobile. One of those is RC racing, a smaller bit of the overall racing genre. It is one of my favorite game-types to play on mobile. Tonight’s recommendation is for Mini Motor Racing from game developer The Binary Mill.
MMR is focused around 4-car races set on short-tracks typically for 3 – 5 laps. There are 20+ cars, four of which are available at the start of your career. The cars are buggy-fied versions of street cars, as well as a handful of more rugged vehicles; trucks and jeeps and such. There are a few control types that are available. My preferred setup is to use the virtual racing wheel and gas pedal; no auto-acceleration for this kid. You can also boost your car’s speed with short bursts of nitro. You normally start a race with 4 bottles of nitrous, and additional pickups appear at random on the track during the race.
The key to doing well in this game is to learn how to drive the track without ever needing to come off the gas. You can make great times by just letting your speed naturally bleed off in a drift. You can nudge your opponents if you want; they tend to not be very polite in a corner. But it is better to avoid contact with them at all. The collision physics in the game are very bouncy and hitting another car followed by impacting a wall or a bump on the track can often have very unpredictable results. You will also often wind up getting snarled up with an opponent and have to extract yourself with a combination of short bumps of speed and hard-turning the wheel to get unstuck. Such an event is a total time-killer that you are unlikely to recover from in a race.
The cars are upgrade-able in the areas of Acceleration, Speed, Handling, and Nitro. This is bite-sized racing at its best. The tracks are amazingly well detailed graphically for such a small bit of a racer. There are over 100 tracks and events. The game is $0.99 on the Amazon App Store, and has a rating of 3.6 stars out of 5.0. Most of the negative reviews are from bugs that appeared in versions of the game from 3 years ago. My guess and hope is that these have been resolved, as I have not seen them appear on my version on the Kindle Fire HD6. The game is entirely from a top-down view, so it takes some time to get your head screwed on straight and understand the relative position of your car in relation to the steering input. I’ve had the game for some time and I still get disoriented from time-to-time.
I love racing games of all types and despite the difference between this title and something like GRiD or Forza, I get a big kick out of my time spent in Mini Motor Racing. Getting in and playing a quick set of 3 races is incredibly fast and easy, as is managing your collection of cars and upgrades. This one is well worth the price of your $0.99 admission. The game is also available on other mobile gaming platforms.