The latest racing game from EA has been published to Google Play today. However, the North American launch is a little messed up because the app has two versions: a US and an International version.
Upon accessing the Play Store page of the US app, users came across the awful, but oh too familiar with EA “This app is incompatible with your device” sign under the install button. That’s pretty awkward for an app release in States and it was caused most probably by someone down the development chain that accidentally forgot to uncheck things before launching in the Play Store.
Regardless of this, the game is now at large. But why should you consider installing this game? Here are some of its features.
The game has a 6.1 MB initial size, but the full install will take another 1.7 GB of storage. At first I was amazed to see that the game was available to install on my aging Samsung Galaxy Ace, but surely enough, the app force closes right away at every launch.
The app requires an Android version of at least 2.3.3 (Gingerbread), however I don’t know how many phones stuck with Gingerbread will be able to run this game smoothly.
The game is free to install but as with any free to play game there are always in-game micro-transactions.The game gives players the ability to upgrade their cars using in-game or real-money (which I personally think it’s a horrible upgrade mechanic, ruining the fun for others who don’t pony up). Another frowned-upon gimmick to make people cough up money is the fact that you must wait a period of time before you are able to do various things to your car. To buy a car you have to wait 3 minutes. To repair your car after a race: wait an hour. To tune-up your car you have to wait 3 hours. But of course, the game offers you the chance to skip this waiting time if you give it some coins. Not cool EA, not cool. I don’t see Valve starving with their free-to-play games, but I’m diverting.
You may have heard of one of the games main feature: the new time-shifted multiplayer mechanic. This mechanic allows for players to challenge each other for a race, where the challenger can play the game in one day, and the challenged can race one day later for example. The interesting part is that they do not employ the ghost car feature, allowing you to pass through your competitor’s car. You can fully interact with the other car and this can change that player’s time. So in a way, after you interact with his car, you are playing with a bot that follows that players path.
[source: androidspin.com]