And the single-player races have so much rubber-banding (cars at the back of the pack being artificially sped up to catch the leaders) that at times I felt like I was playing Mario Kart. The crash mechanic is much more forgiving to computers than to humans. Cars that are technically inferior to yours will zip past you even when you're boosting. It doesn't help that the AI opponents are unbelievably cheap. (Or, of course, you can fork over a few bucks.) That means that to continue to buy new cars, you'll either have to buy specific cars that you may or may not want, or grind through races you've already played to get all the objectives and more cash. Most races are limited to a class of car, but after the first season, more and more of them are limited to a single manufacturer or even a single model. The campaign is split into seasons of 12-20 races.

In a starter car that might appeal to a lead-footed soccer mom or a half-million dollar piece of carbon-clad adrenaline on wheels, you're going to be enjoying the ride.īut none of this is as manipulative as the structure of the single-player mode itself. Whether you're going it alone in the campaign or quick race modes or duking it out with real people online or in local WiFi play, the feeling of speed and competition is an ever-present factor. Zipping around the tracks, jumping 200 feet in the air, smashing an opponent, and raising the combined auto insurance rates of the entire world by an appreciable margin is undeniably fun. A zombie-inspired Infected mode? Well that's lifted out of Forza, but you get the point: connoisseurs of the racing genre will find nothing in Asphalt that they haven't seen before many times.Īll that said, a well-made copy is still enjoyable, and Asphalt 8 delivers the goods. A camera that slowly and lovingly pans over environments and crashes? Check. Gameloft as a development company has all the originality of a photocopier, and it's clear that Burnout was their barely-concealed inspiration for Asphalt 8.

Asphalt 8: airborne soundtrack