Pulling off tricks in Cars: Fast as Lightning is done by swiping in the designated direction as you enter an obstacle (a piece of twisting track or a bridge, for example). If you don't slow down enough your car will hurtle into the barrier, causing you to lose ground on your rival.

The races are based on the slot-car mechanic of keeping your mouse button held down to accelerate then releasing it to slow down around bends. All of the instructions on the tutorial levels are spoken by the characters as well as written, meaning that even pre-schoolers could pick the game up and start playing without too much bother. Child's playĪs you'd hope for such a popular movie with youngsters, Cars: Fast as Lightning is very kid-friendly.

There's a multiplayer mode in Cars: Fast as Lightning, where you can invite your buddies to race on your tracks, which is good fun. Energy (oil cans in this case) can be won by completing challenges in the town, but again, it all breaks up the action on the track. This restricts the number of times you can race a car before having to either wait a few minutes or spend gems to keep going. Sure, you don't have to spend all your time tending to the city, but if you don't you'll find it hard to proceed through the races for want of game currency to upgrade.Īnother thing that puts the brakes on Cars: Fast as Lightning is its energy system, made infamous by racing games like Real Racing 3 and Angry Birds Go!. What it actually does is provide an unnecessary distraction to all the fun that's to be had on the race track, racing and designing courses. It's almost like the developer Gameloft has seen that this format is popular and tried to shoe-horn it into the game. Somehow this city building part of the game feels out of place in Cars: Fast as Lightning. The stuff you build eventually earns you coins and XP, and the cars that cruise around the roads can complete tasks to earn more stuff. Just like in games such as Simpsons: Tapped Out, Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff, or Ice Age Village, Cars: Fast as Lightning invites you to rebuild the town (in this case Radiator Springs), constructing buildings and pits for the various characters. As per usual this requires in-game coins, which are earned through racing, and even more through Cars: Fast as Lighting's other gaming element - the city builder. There are lots of challenges to complete which helps to keep interest in the game.Īs you go along you'll need to beef up your cars with upgrades in order to be fast enough to win races. Each of these add-ons adds exciting new elements to the gameplay, allowing you pull off tricks to gain more XP.

These tracks can be customized with all kinds of fun elements such as bridges, tunnels, blimps and even cannons. As you win races in Cars: Fast as Lightning you get to unlock new Cars characters and tracks.

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