Woohoo! MFi controller support was just added in the latest update. Now I just need an MFi controller.
Class 1 added with new cars and tracks... But the prices quite high for how much you re earning from farming (+ the iaps are quite expensive for what they giving)... I have buy only 3 cars with only one maxed (with almost all the levels in 1st position) and i am not even in the middle to buy one of the class 1 (the new one) to unlock the courses... Great really great game but the prices are to high are way off...
If ur on a jailbroken iphone use 'controllers for all' with a ps3 controller. Wrks beautifully on most other mfi supported games.
I'm getting more and more tempted to do that. If I already owned a PS3 controller I'd have done that a long time ago. However I'd have to buy one just for this. I've been holding out for a full size official MFi controller, because then I know it will work with all current and future iOS versions and devices. A couple of them were announced to be released toward the beginning of summer, but they still haven't arrived. Of course with my luck, I'll cave in and buy a PS3 controller and then next week the MadCatz one will finally release.
Yeah the IAP prices are too high in this game. I've bought IAP car packs in Asphalt 8 and Real Racing 3 because you could actually get a fair amount of stuff for a few bucks. In this game though I'd end up having to spend around $25 to buy enough currency for a single high level premium car, which is ridiculous. They'd make some money off of me if they lowered the prices, but as it is I just stopped playing eventually when it got too grindy. I will check out the new content though.
So I tried the new cars and content. A few observations. The prices on these things are in line with the other cars in the other tiers. A new player starting out should have the funds by the time they get to this tier to buy one. The problem being that again, the player will more than likely only have enough for one (unless the player grinds or is just obsessed with the game) and if they buy the car that isn't the one they prefer in terms of play style then they are probably going to be sorely disappointed. The in game menus are still atrocious. I wish I had written the prices down before buying them all but it cost somewhere in the neighborhood of a million for all the cars and the upgrades with about 100 or so RR bucks required for the final upgrades. The price for all the cars is way too high but for one of them the pricing is fine and obtainable in game with no IAP from some quick math in the races payouts. The payouts look like they scale better now as I was getting more for the later races than the first set in each class but again that was a quick glance. I could be mistaken as I didn't write anything down but they do seem to have upped the payouts on the later races by a few thousand. XP also seemed higher. The 2 new courses are great but they are already available in other RR games so at least the player knows what they are getting. They work well on mobile and allow the the SYNQi and RC410 to really show off as they can drift the entire course at full speed. Pretty great feeling. The negatives aside, it is great to see new content but the reality and sad thing is that new players may never see it if they aren't very good at the game. The game is still brutal and coming back after a few months of playing other racing games, even myself who is pretty good overall at RR games, had some troubles. I did notice that the upgrades for each car aren't required. At least for the two that I tried bare bones. I went through the entire first Masters class with a non-upgraded RC410 and was able to beat each race in first place (with a few do overs and retries of course). The rubber banding seemed to have been toned down since when I was able to breakaway, the AI never caught up. I raced a series with the SYNQi as well non-upgraded and was able to beat that one pretty easy. That is the ideal Dynamic car much like its Vita counterpart. I haven't beaten all of the new series but I will over the next week or so to see if it is the same deal. It seems to be that the upgrades, while expensive, still aren't required to progress. The only wall or stop gap for progression is the purchase of a new car. Multiplayer also seems to be a little better. Still seems to have AI peppered in there but there were definitely a few real racers in the three races I ran. Connections seemed to hold up. So far so good but I do agree the IAP is priced way too high for what you get in return. Reminds me of the stupid RR3 coin packs on initial release (before they dropped to a reasonable rate) or even the 2 cars for $99 in Asphalt. The ROI just isn't there but then again, you don't really need it if you are good enough to progress and therein lies the rub. The players that aren't so great will think they need the IAP when in reality they don't. Buying new cars or upgrades outside of that one jump to a new tier really won't help you in this game.
Thanks for the review rapaleeman. I haven't had time to play with the new update yet. I do agree that the IAPs aren't necessary to complete most of the game without excessive grinding, as long as you stick to one car per class. However part of the fun of playing driving games is being able to use different cars with different behaviors. So while I don't need to have all the different types of cars, I would like to, so in any given class I can choose a dynamic, standard or mild car depending on what I feel like driving. I'd gladly pay $5 or so for a car pack to unlock all the cars for a given class, but the actual price if I wanted to unlock the 3 normal class 1 cars for instance would be around $50! Even unlocking the cheapest of them is $10. TL;DR: If the IAP prices were lower I'd have bought some by now. As it is, while I'm not pissed about it since I've easily gotten my $3 of fun from the game, they also aren't going to make any more money from me since the prices are so unreasonable. I suspect I'm not alone in this.
That is probably the biggest flaw of this game. The fact that the cost of the cars are so high that unless you truly are addicted to the game (which I was a while ago hence why I had the free credits to purchase this stuff without IAPs) you won't get them all. While you don't need the IAPs, if you buy the wrong one or don't want to drive sideways the entire track for a given class you are kind of screwed. It does hurt replayability which to me is a flaw the devs should have seen but then again this is the same parent company (not the devs directly) that released RRVita and thought the lack of content was ok. The only upside is that the upgrades aren't required so the argument could be made that you only need the price of the cars to get them all and proceed so that is at least a plus. It's a bad argument but at least the devs didn't require upgrades to make the purchased cars worthwhile like RR3 or Asphalt. You are not. If I didn't have the money saved up from my obsession period a few months back and my diligence to log in every day to get my RR bucks I would have more than likely been so irritated at the updated and uninstalled the game entirely. I feel for those that have uninstalled and don't have a back up of their save. I don't think this thing has iCloud at all which is a crime.
I too was shocked at the price of everything. Not having completed class 2 extreme (which has a lot more races than I realized), it would either cost 120k for the 1st tier 1 car, or minimum 120 gold for the rc410. Just atrocious pricing, but hey it's Bandai Namco....I've learned they'll stoop to new lows we didn't expect (and have repeatedly over the last few years now). MFi does really amplify this game for me though! Besides the ridiculous cost of things, RR purists will most certainly LOVE the return of lift throttle drifting. It's how I've done it for decades, and I love it. Analog works well, so I have to say that this is the best rendition of a handheld version thanks to the addition of MFi.....now if we could only get past the stupid pricing.
Call me crazy, but I think the best handheld RR is Ridge Racers 2 (EU) for PSP. I'm so spoiled by that game. Smooth framerate, sensible car unlocking, huge campaign, tons of tracks, etc.
I hadn't played this for a couple of months, and forgot how fun it is. It runs beautifully on my iPad 4. I just tried a couple of online races though, and even when I came in 1st, it said I earned 0 CR and 0 RR currency. Anyone else seeing that?
I haven't seen the no rewards as the couple of online races I did got a few thousand bucks a pop. I got first in one for a little more than 5,000CR but the average seems to be between 3,000 and 4,000. No RR buck payouts but the CR seems to scale depending on how many real dudes are racing versus the AI. I'll keep checking over the weekend to see what's up. Maybe I'm lucky and it works or maybe it was a server disconnect as I have noticed that when the network is interrupted it doesn't dump you back to the main menu. You keep racing but the non-AI racers disappear. As a note I'm on an iPhone 5 in case that makes a difference. As for the best RR handheld game, this is the best one currently available. RR3D for the 3DS has a weird handling model that doesn't feel quite right and the Vita one, while functionally fine has less content than this game which is baffling. Ridge Racers 2 never released in the States where I'm at but I did play it by other means (I imported it). Great game and totally complete but it is a PSP title with no new cars in it. I think the difference was a couple of extra tracks and songs. The car list I believe was the same as US release, Ridge Racer for the PSP which is also available on the Vita. While I still like the PSP versions and think they are great iterations of the series as they contain a little bit from every previous release, Slipstream is a current release that I can take anywhere. It has the cars I prefer from RR7 and RRVita (I love both the SYNQi and RC410) and the game is still Ridge Racer but on my iPhone. I don't have to charge my Vita or try to locate my PSP in a box somewhere. Slipstream plays well and the multiplayer, while not perfect, is totally functional. The pay model is really the only negative and again, not a complete deal breaker if you buy the car style that you prefer to drive but it does hurt variety in the long run.
Ah, maybe it was because there were no human racers in my races. It did seem like all the racers were AI, because there was no lag at all, and also their behavior was too similar to the AI. Have you found any definite way to tell which ones are AI other than just going by their behavior?
Has anyone noticed if the normal races in Arcade mode have gotten easier? I did some class 2 races in Arcade mode on several tracks with a semi-upgraded Erstlanze, and I always end up in first place toward the beginning of the first lap and then just get farther ahead throughout the race. It's not because I'm racing extremely well or anything, the AI are just very easy. I don't remember Arcade mode being that easy before, but I'm not sure since I've spent a lot more time in Career mode. It would be nice if we could set the AI difficulty in Arcade mode in addition to choosing a track and car.
Human racers use nicknames and usually have a different level than yours. AI racers use real names. The game is great but needs a better online with rooms, events... The chances to find real racers are ery very slim and is always a one on one.
Thanks. I wonder if the chance of finding other racers is slim because not many people are playing the game, or if it's due to some technical problems.
People don´t play because is poorly implemented, waiting only 15 secs is too little time to find someone, people gets tired to race against AI players. What is the point anyways?, AI players are for offline mode, online means real players, even there is only three is much better than a AI race. Waiting rooms, schenuled races or campionships with several time zones would work better.
The online could definitely be better but I almost always have at least two real players other than myself in a race. Granted sometimes those folks drop out but typically there is more than one person. I am on the East Coast in the US so it is possible that at night when I play a few races I am matched with those outside the US and just happen to be getting lucky. While I definitely don't think the online numbers are super impressive like in RR3 or even Asphalt, but I have never been in an all AI race before. Not saying that it doesn't or can't happen but it hasn't happened to me. I'm sure the dedicated still play Slipstream as those same insane folks till play RR7 on the PS3 and that thing was a launch title. As for the difficulty, I've noticed that it has seemingly been toned down across the board. Even the Extreme Battles that were difficult for me (they required perfect runs) are beatable now with some mistakes and I've noticed that once I am ahead, as long as I don't screw up the AI does not seem to catch up. They don't fall too far behind but you can get a commanding lead now which is great.
I didn't notice that the Extreme Battles had gotten any easier. However I did just notice something which I think explains why the Arcade mode races were seeming so easy. It seems like in Arcade mode the game randomly chooses your opponent's car classes without regard to which car you choose. I had a few races where it seemed like I was having to actively dodge the opponents at the start of the race because my car was so much faster than them. I noticed on the leaderboard at the end that all the opponent cars were slower class cars than mine. I did a few more races and got a couple where a I had opponents that actually put up a fight, and saw at the end that they were the same class as me. This is when I choose Arcade/Regular Race. This seems like a strange choice. I wonder if it's intentional, or if it's a bug. I've never seen any other racing game put you up against slower class cars. I'd certainly like the option to turn it off and force all cars to be the same class as me.
