Review: Asphalt Injection (Vita)
Whenever a new console launches, many of the launch titles aim to showcase what the new system will be bringing to the market, and unfortunately a lot of the time these titles can be a bit hit and miss. Asphalt is no newcomer to launch line-ups, and unfortunately has failed to deliver on those other occasions. Does Asphalt Injection inject life back into the racer? or has it finally crashed out? Find out in this review.
Asphalt Injection is a typical Arcade Racer that plays surprisingly well on the Vita. The gameplay is what you would want and expect from the genre, providing a fun, fast and enjoyable experience. The game features a main career mode which rewards players with unlockables such as cars as you progress, featuring a garage of around 40 in total. Each of the cars you unlock will have different statistics giving every racer the opportunity to choose their perfect car for each race. While the linear progression of unlocks doesn’t always provide you with a better vehicle, they’re all still fun to give a try. Asphalt Injection also features a small customisation functionality, allowing you to upgrade each car in a number of areas such as engine, handing and boost. Sponsors are also on hand, and can offer rewards depending on for finishing position, though it’s strange that they don’t appear on your car as you race, leaving the vehicles looking a little bland.
Throughout the career mode you’ll also notice some other unlockable features. During the entire course of the campaign you can race over 20 different leagues. Each league contains several races, all of which give players Stars as an award. Stars can be earned in each race and the amount of stars you can earn depends on how well your performance was in the races, with extra ones being awarded for bonus objectives. Once you’ve earned enough stars you can use them to unlock new cars, as well as new leagues. The difficulty in each league as you progress gets much harder, requiring you to purchase/unlock better cars to be able to stand a chance in the races. The difficulty isn’t too hard however due to the availability of purchasing improvements for your car making the races possible. The AI however does have some rubber banding issues and at times the AI tends to be miles ahead of you, until you get close enough they sometimes tend to just drop behind, making the races often a little uneasy and dull.
The gameplay is probably one of Asphalt’s strong points this time around and has improved since its 3DS release. Asphalt Injection is all about arcade style races and offers a lot of enjoyment. There are many different race types to keep you interested, with the favourites returning including race mode, time trial and drift races, along with a few others including multiplayer. Asphalt’s approach this time around is not just racing, but also wrecking other opponents, which at times can also reward you. Along with the added features Asphalt Injection also includes an Adrenaline mode where anything you touch will turn to dust. To enter Adrenaline mode, the NO2 boost gauge has to be filled by collecting the boosts that are littered throughout the courses, as well as taking on traffic or completing challenges.
Asphalt Injection’s design is appealing and the Vita’s OLED screen brings out the best elements of the games’ graphics. The cars look beautiful at times but feature rough textures, and the tracks can showcase bad scenery and random flickering objects, not to mention the pretty lengthy load times.
The main flaw I had with my overall gaming experience is the feeling that the game still had some issues, mainly due to the “crashing” abbility. The game allows players to smash into each other, this is flawed by the inability to control your car after smashing into an opponent, often leading to frustration as your own car can get get wrecked unexpectedly, at times proving to be a huge setback. This can also cause you to have to re-do certain events.
As I mentioned briefly before, Asphalt Injection features a multiplayer mode. This mode is a nice added feature but is ridiculously slow. You can host a match and pick where you wish to race. The main flaw is even as a host you have to wait for enough people to be ready, or you will have to wait for a long unknown timer to kick in. You can play with up to 8 people in one race, the multiplayer experience I had was lag free but is a mode I won’t be using to much due to its long loading and bad lobby system.
Overall 6.0/10
Looking at Asphalt Injection I feel that the game has some great elements, but still has its rough flaws which doesn’t make the game feel complete. The AI is very unpredictable which can cause some frustration at times. The design is appealing but it still has some rough textures. The multiplayer mode is a thoughtful idea but it doesn’t work well. There are so many cheaper versions of Asphalt, so the asking price for the Vita seems a little much My overall experience with Asphalt Injection was fun and enjoyable, but it definitely needed more to keep players interested.