Asphalt 6: Adrenaline HD for Android

I know I’m kinda late to review such game but when it was released in iTunes store, it took time to get a good, working version for the 4th Generation iPod touch. Now that I got my hands on a decent Android unit and the Android Market offers the HD version for this game, I took the chance. The device I’m using is HTC Desire S and the game works perfectly.

I’ve played almost all versions of the Asphalt game series, including the titles ported on the N-GAGE platform. Though from Asphalt 4 to 5, I lost the interest in playing them. It started to become more difficult to understand (for me) on where the game is heading to. At the very start of the series, it was purely cars. Those were the times when a decent racing game was needed for the awaiting Nokia Series 40 phone owners and indeed it was a hit. The second and third installment came in and new stuff such as the inclusion of superbikes went into the game. By Asphalt 4, I lost the interest in such games because the series seemed to be stucked in a stalemate, that adding new cars really did not make the game appear as if it is new. By Asphalt 5, the impression still seemed to be the same as 4 but it still did not fair to the excitement that the first three brought. The 5’s physics was difficult to handle and the game was kind of difficult if you are the sort of person who’s just trying to look for fun out of arcade racing games. Now, though, the 6 seemed to bring the same level of excitement as the first three in the series.

First that caught my attention to this game is the graphics. The first installment was a great hit because Gameloft was able to pull out that amount of graphical detail from the hardware of Nokia Series 40 devices. N-Gage was able to provide better graphics for the first two games but when the third game was released, it was only for high end devices with N-gage ports, which meant it was not that accessible and only a few phones can run them. Same for Asphalt 4 which made it less popular and also the graphics became more and more out-dated. When 5 came out, it was also available in iOS platform. However, the iOS platform can offer better racing games with better graphics so it did not much click as well. When the 6 came out, the cars had better detail and better handling physics.

You can now maintain drifts easier (and with proper car control logic), which is pretty much the same as Need for Speed Hot Pursuit! It is now back to its arcade racing roots, in terms of racing excitement, with all the additional features of the previous titles. Then you add the nice selection of latest machines which is very nice.

Overall, I liked the game so much. It may not be on par with the games on iOS but on Android platform, it is a must-get arcade racer. After all, it is marked “HD” which runs with the same amount of graphics awesomeness that you can get from Asphalt 6 running on Retina-displayed iPod and iPhone.