Cheap & Cheerful?

Gaming on iPad is fun, but most of the fun comes with a price. People want cheap and smooth gaming experience, but is there such thing as "cheap & cheerful"? To seek for the answer, "My Tech, My Life" has spent lots of time going through the list of apps in the app store, downloading the one with potential, and trying them out. And ONE DAY, we came across this car racing app, and it is so CLOSE to being CRAZILY AMAZING. Yet, while we were enjoying the game, we detected a GLITCH.

Alright, back to the main dish. This app we have here is called Asphalt 6, a beautiful car racing app that captured our heart once we start accelerating. This first thing that distinguish Asphalt 6 from other racing game are the controllers. If you ever paid attention to your other racing app, the developers placed both the gas pedal/throttle and the break pedal at the right and left corner of your screen. It not only obstruct the magnificent scenery around you, but also distract your sight. Asphalt 6, in this case, managed to score a pretty high marks from the judges, as the Asphalt 6 developer was capable of hiding both the ugly buttons from our plain sight, and only activate them instantly when your thumbs touch either the left or right side of your screen (any part of the screen that you like). When your thumb touch the surface of the screen, a beautiful glow with appear and surround your thumb, hinting you that your gas/ break pedal has been activated.

Okay, next, we move forward to the race. There are two modes available: Career and Free Race. Free race provides you the opportunity to gain extra cash and some practice, while the Career mode leads you score some serious promotions and sponsors, unlocking more tracks and cars. From what we've experienced, the game controlling is smooth and responsive, making it easier and faster to score the race. In the middle of the race, you can collect bonuses tokens such as N.O.S for power boost, and "$" for extra cash. To activate your N.O.S, all you need to do is to double tap your gas pedal. If you successfully collected sufficient N.O.S tokens, it will switch your power boost into ADRENALIN mode, giving maximum power to your car for a limited time, which is very useful when you want to overtake 2 to 3 opponents at the same time. One thing worth mentioning is, when you're in ADRENALIN mode, your screen will turn into striking bright blue, displaying beautiful graphic that shows your car speeding. Our advice is, don't concentrate too much on the amazing graphic, you might lose in no time, LOL! Avoiding crashes will earn you extra points, and performing some drift could help you gain more cash. The easiest method to perform drift is to tap on the break paddle once, and simultaneously tilt your iPad to the direction you want to turn. And when you want to straighten back your car, just stabilize your iPad, tap the break paddle once more, then tap on the gas paddle.

In this game, unlocking the cars of your dream is not that hard. As long as you play frequently, you will notice how rapid is the unlock cycle. We managed to unlock our fourth car, a Mercedes AMG, in less than an hour. Besides that, you will also score some bonus gifts, such as new decals and tuning kits. Another worthy feature is the gorgeous 3D garage which you can navigate around by tapping on the virtual joystick (to move forward and backward) and also physically moving your iPad around (to turn left or right).

To be honest, we really want to give this app a 5 stars recommendation, however, we change our mind when we noticed a significant amount of unexpected shutdown throughout our gaming sessions. At certain time, it shutdown suddenly when our Audi almost reach the finish line, how dreadful, LOL! Other than that, this FREE game really is one of the best we've ever tested this year.

(Note: So far there is no hidden cost detected, but we will continue the test and give you guys the latest updates)