Review: Mister Bumblebee Racing Challenge is gorgeous (and a decent racer too)
I just picked up Mister Bumblebee Racing Challenge “>Mister Bumblebee Racing Challenge for the iPhone and was so impressed by the visuals, I thought I’d share.
Gameplay-wise, MBRC is somewhat similar to Crash Nitro Kart – you can race around 1 of four different fully 3D tracks, as one of four different insects. There are items you can pick up along the way you can use to slow down other players or to protect you from being slowed down yourself.
You can choose between an “easy”, “medium”, or “hard” race, the main difference being the speed at which you fly around the world. While “easy” mode is great for practicing the controls, it is painfully slow, however, I can’t imagine I will ever be coordinated enough to win a “hard” race. At high speeds avoiding obstacles is nearly impossible. You have the option of choosing how many laps you’d like to run each race (1, 3, 5, or 10) and if you want to really kill a couple hours, try racing 10 laps on “easy”.
You control steering of your insect via tilting the iPhone, however for some reason controlling your altitude necessitates hitting up and down buttons on the right instead of simply tilting your iPhone forward or back – I would like to see that as an option. Similar buttons on the left hand side of the screen control your speed.
The controls take a little getting used to, but in general it is a fun and somewhat unique racing experience. And yes, the visuals are very impressive. The entire world is “hand drawn” in bright cartoon textures, which have been mapped on to 3D plates. The overall effect is really cool, and needs to be seen to be appreciated. Of course, all this artwork comes at a price, and that is a rather long load time. I also found that on my first game I had to power down the iPhone and then restart to avoid the game crashing during the opening menu screens. This only happened on my iPhone, not my iPod touch, and this is a known issue for large games like Bugdom and such. The game has not crashed since that initial failure to launch.
Issues
Aside from the load time and the lack of accelerometer-based altitude controls, the only other gripe I might have is that it is sometimes not entirely clear which way you are meant to go. Because the courses are designed to mimic an insect’s view of the world, there are at times a dizzying array of foliage and such that can make finding your way back on course a little difficult. There is a course map on the bottom of each screen that shows you where you and the other racers are, and you can usually use that to figure out where you should be going. Obviously the more you play the less of an issue that will be.
One final criticism is one I can throw at the majority of iPhone racers, and that is the game would benefit hugely from Wi-Fi multi-player support. Asphalt has it, so why don’t other racers?
Mister Bumblebee Racing Challenge “> provides a decent racing experience accompanied by beautiful hand drawn visuals. The game is not nearly as fun as Crash Kart (it lacks a little of the zaniness, and creative touches) but some real effort went into this title and it’s still a nice addition to any iPhone racing fan’s repertoire.
Price: $4.99
Pros: Beautiful hand drawn 3D environment, many options, choices of characters, races, and more
Cons: Lacks the fun/zaniness of Crash Kart, Easy level is too easy, hard is WAY to hard to control. (I guess that’s why there’s a “medium).
Why review this game? How long has it been since any iphone app was reviewed on this site?
Why not review a game you have played? This really isn’t a review site, it’s a blog so I think it makes perfect sense…but what do I know 🙂