Game review: Speed Forge Extreme - iPhone / iPod Touch (From Your Local Guardian)

Game review: Speed Forge Extreme - iPhone / iPod Touch

3:45pm Monday 25th January 2010 in

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Speed Forge Extreme is a high-quality futuristic thrill ride of an arcade combat racing game for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

It overtakes the competition to become the new leader in the sub-genre of Wipeout-like games which has been growing in the App Store.

The game takes place on 22nd-century Mars, the background being that bored citizens of the colonised planet are looking for some excitement and being of the criminal persuasion they decide to engage in illegal races on 12 tracks around abandoned factories and mines.

Racing cars take the form of heavy-duty hover vehicles, formerly used for mining but now equipped with weapons to literally blow competitors away.

The game, from Chillingo via developer RatSquare, has clearly been heavily influenced by forerunners on other platforms.

But the production values are so high for a mobile game and the racing/battle action is so slick that it’s easy to overlook a lack of originality.

The game has a lot to offer, but be prepared to be fed one spoonful at a time on your first play-through due to Speed Forge’s rigid single-player structure.

Winning races gradually unlocks the dozen tracks and also opens up four battle events in which you drive around contained arenas trying to blast your computer-controlled opponents.

Power-ups which allow you to do damage to your rivals as well as protect yourself are also unlocked by triumphing in races and events.

These include weapons such as missiles and lasers plus shields and repair kits which restore your health bar as it takes damage from enemies or crashing into scenery.

If you do lose all your health during races or combat your craft explodes which costs a few seconds of track time. It’s the frantic kind of game where you need to take your foes out before they get you.

Power-ups are collected by flying through boxes scattered around the courses and then activated by tapping the appropriate on-screen button.

There are also speed booster and breaker zones which affect your performance when you run through them.

The game offers six different ships to pilot, all with slightly different handling attributes. As with everything else, success in Speed Forge leads to more vehicles becoming available.

Speed Forge provides five alternative control methods, although the default configuration of auto-accelerate and tilting to steer works perfectly well. In fact, the accelerometer control is among the smoothest I’ve yet seen in any iPhone/iPod game.

The game boasts a “realistic physics simulation” which is a little odd as nobody has ever been able to experience 22nd-century hover craft racing on Mars.

But it is fair to say that vehicle handling in the game is very good. The race ships are not too light or too heavy. They are responsive without ever feeling jerky.

There is an impressive sense of speed in the game, the adrenaline pumping even harder thanks to the pounding soundtrack.

It’s easy to get immersed in the action.

Graphics in the game are top-notch, with superb use of colour and lighting.

Tracks are well designed and varied. The camera angle feels right and there are nice effects such as explosions.

All the major things a game like this needs to do well, Speed Forge does.

It’s a shame there are not currently any online leaderboards or multiplayer modes, although the game does at least record best race and lap times.

Replay value is increased by being able to repeat previously completed races and events on any of the game’s three difficulty settings.

I wasn’t expecting too much out of Speed Forge, but I’ve found it to be a great looking and very enjoyable high-speed combat racing game.

Verdict: 8 out of 10 – What it lacks in originality and multiplayer options, Speed Forge Extreme more than makes up for with polished presentation and slick action.

Watch a gameplay video of Speed Forge Extreme: