Asphalt Injection

UPC: 008888317135

Platform: PlayStation Vita

Publisher: Ubisoft Entertainment

Developer: Ubisoft Romania

Category: Racing

Style(s): Sports Car Racing

Synopsis: Asphalt Injection is an arcade-style racing game featuring over 45 licensed cars from such manufacturers as Ferrari, Lamborghini, Nissan, Aston Martin, and Bugatti. A total of 20 tracks are included, each loosely based on real-life destinations like Monte Carlo, Rio de Janeiro, and Shanghai. Each course is filled with a number of collectibles, shortcuts, and jumps to discover, and all vehicles come equipped with a rechargeable nitro boost so you can surge ahead of the competition. Ten different event types are available in the career mode, with money earned from events used to purchase new vehicle types, decals, and other customization options. Up to eight players can challenge each other online. ~ Scott Alan Marriott, All Game Guide

Controls: Joystick/Gamepad

Part of a series that originated on mobile devices, Gameloft's Asphalt Injection is an arcade-style racer that borrows so many ideas from other games in the genre, you'd expect the title to be Need for Burnout. You'll drive exotic cars, outrun the police, receive points for driving close to other vehicles or catching air, and watch slow-motion crashes. Along the way, you can also collect glowing objects strewn about the courses, such as dollar signs for cash, icons for speed boosts, and so forth. Asphalt Injection could use a novel idea injection. While Asphalt won't earn any points for originality, it at least offers plenty of things to do. There's a career mode that has you progressing through 100 events, and both Ad-hoc and online multiplayer support are included. There's one not-so-small problem, however. The AI racers rely on cheating to make races competitive, using the same "rubber-banding" technique used in the Mario Kart series to keep everyone close. Once you pass an opponent, which requires liberal amounts of turbo boosting, the car will stick like glue to your rear bumper and even try to swerve into you. This could have been interesting if the damage modeling came close to Burnout's, but it's not even close. The 20 featured courses in Asphalt Injection are inspired by locations from around the world, offering a nice change of scenery and different shortcuts to discover. The visuals aren't exactly taxing the Vita's capabilities, however. There's no sense of breakneck speed, and there isn't much pedestrian traffic to avoid. Even the jumps seem like you're floating in air instead of soaring. The key selling point for this particular version of Asphalt is the expanded control options. Players can utilize both analog sticks, one for steering and one for acceleration, or even hold the Vita like a steering wheel and tilt the device left or right. The controls work well because the game is extremely forgiving when it comes to handling, which brings up another problem: the cars don't feel significantly different from one another. Asphalt Injection offers over 50 licensed vehicles to unlock as well as upgrades to purchase, but it's all cosmetic. Due to the ruthlessly cheating AI, it doesn't really matter what parts you add to your car, because your opponents will always be on your tailpipe. Yet the most vexing aspect of Asphalt Injection is that Vita owners are being charged a premium for what is essentially the same game as the substantially cheaper iOS versions. The biggest difference between versions is ultimately not the control scheme, but the impact on your wallet. ~ Scott Alan Marriott, All Game Guide

the game requires Joystick/Gamepad.