Hill Climb Racing

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Game Information
Name: Hill Climb Racing
Genre: Strategy
Release Date: November 2012
Developers: Fingersoft
Publishers: Fingersoft
Age rating: 9+
Platform(s): iOS, Windows and Android

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Synopsis

Meet Newton Bill, the young aspiring uphill racer. He is about to embark on a journey that takes him to where no ride has ever been before. With little respect to the laws of physics, Newton Bill will not rest until he has conquered the highest hills up on the moon!

Face the challenges of many unique hill climbing environments. Gain bonuses from daring tricks and collect coins to upgrade your car and reach even higher distances. Watch out though - Bill's stout neck is not what it used to be when he was a kid! And his good ol' gasoline crematorium will easily run out of fuel.

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Gameplay

Hill Climb Racing is a fantastic game to challenge your patience with gently racing across a difficult landscape; including drawbridges and other surprises. You see the game from a side-on 2D view, this actually makes the game quite enjoyable, any other view would make it incredibly difficult to play. The game has some physics within it, if you floor the gas you usually end up flipping the car - most cases this causes you to flip without enough room and break your neck, causing you to restart the stage. Hill Climb Racing is very dependant on you being able to reach fuel floating around throughout the track, as you have a fuel bar indicator that decreases as you use the gas to propel you forwards, this makes it very difficult at times as you need alot of gas to make it over certain hills, once reaching the top you find that you're running very low on gas and need to strategically save as much as you can to make it to the next floating fuel can that refills your fuel bar. As you progress through the stage you begin to face more daring and dangerous hills you are required to go over, you have to start really thinking about it and be prepared to take it nice and calm. The further you go you unlock challenges with the distance you have travelled. Along the way there will be coins, it is necessary to try your best to collect them as you will eventually need to purchase in-game upgrades (using coins collected within the game) for your vehicle to overcome parts of the stage. As you collect more coins, you will have the opportunity to buy new stages (different terrain), new vehicles and more upgrades for your current vehicle.

The purchases within the game using coins are quite entertaining; firstly you can purchase new and interesting vehicles, starting with your first vehicle as a jeep, you are offered quite a broad selection of new vehicles to purchase. Although the price tag of the more expensive vehicles are quite alot, you can get there pretty easily by playing regularly earning coins at a steady amount. The next is purchasing new and exciting stages to drive on, you begin with a plain countryside, but are given the chance to purchase interesting new stages like new planets to drive on, caves and arctic terrains. Thirdly you are given the option to buy upgrades for your selected vehicle, the four upgrades are; engine, suspension, tires and 4WD. All of these help you to progress through the game at later stages and further distances.

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Graphics

The graphics in Hill Climb Racing are quite nice, the vehicles are detailed quite nicely, each with their own unique movements as you drive over hills, flip or break. The person himself bobs around in the vehicle as you drive along. The landscape itself is detailed in a nice way, you have little bumps of grass every now and then, along with circular shapes within dirt and other terrain. The interface of the game is very simple to use and the slight detail on most of the buttons and pictures look great and add a fantastic touch to make the overall feel of the game look great. Although the general outline of the interface is dark and grey, it still adds a nice feel and enhances the game overall. The graphics of Hill Climb Racing may look incredibly simple, however they make the game look great for an app and in all the graphics work well.

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Controls

The controls of Hill Climb Racing are very simple as most apps. It consists of two buttons - looking the shape of a car pedal. The button towards the left is labelled "Brake", pretty much self explanatory - this button stops the car, however in addition it tends to reverse the vehicle. The other button is labelled "Gas", this is pretty much the 'go' button of the game, pressing it forces the back wheels to spin up causing the vehicle to propel forwards. Even though it may seem that you can just press the 'Gas' button and get away with the game easily, this is not true at all, you constantly need to press both buttons as pressing only one usually causes the car to flip with barely any room causing you to break your neck.

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Ratings (Personal)
Gameplay: 7/10
Graphics: 7/10
Controls: 8/10
Overall: 7/10