City Racing 3D joins the ranks of the many racing games available in the Windows Phone Store. The game offers several global cities to race through and a trio of gaming modes to challenging your racing skills. The game also takes the lead for this week's AdDuplex HERO Lineup.
The HERO Apps program is a promotional campaign for Windows Phone and Windows developers on the AdDuplex Network and partners AdDuplex with myAppFree, AppDeals, PluralSight and Windows Central to deliver a host of benefits to the top apps and games each month. Our role in the HERO App campaign is to offer a little exposure to these titles by sharing them with you, our readers, and today we shine the spotlight on City Racing 3D.
When you first launch City Racing 3D, the game will walk you through a tutorial race that will introduce you to the various gaming controls. From there you will have the option to jump into game play.
You do have a primary menu that offers up options to access the game's settings, view your leaderboard and rate the game. You also have a secondary menu that centers on your garage where you can launch game play, access your player profile and upgrade your current car or buy new vehicles.
Game play has a test drive mode along with three competitive modes. You begin having access to a career mode where you race across several global cities and a multiplayer, 1 on 1 gaming mode. You also have an elimination mode where you race against the clock to avoid being in last place.
Upgrades include paint job customizations, performance upgrades and routine maintenance (just in case you kiss a wall or other player and damage your ride).
The gaming screen layout has your vital stats displayed in the top center of the screen with a few control buttons in the upper right corner. These buttons will allow you to toggle between on-screen and tilt steering, restart the race of change camera views.
Steering options include using your Windows Phone tilt sensors and on-screen controls. You also have nitro boost buttons and a brake/reverse pedal on-screen to help guide your car. Acceleration is automatic. As to which steering control is best, I'm leaning towards the tilt control steering. The on-screen controls are responsive, but they are awfully small. I found myself missing them often, which resulted in crashing into a light post or another obstacle.
Along the racing course, you will find nitro re-charges scattered about that will re-fuel your booster. There is a track outline displayed in the upper right side of the gaming screen that will highlight your position and as you might guess, the object is to finish first. Each race will net you gaming cash that can be used to upgrade cars and buy new vehicles.
A few items of note with regards to the game's settings include the ability to lessen the graphics quality, adjust the steering sensitivity, turning on motion blur and turning on a film mode. I've yet to discover what the film mode does, but the blur mode just adds a little graphic zip when you drift through turns or other stunts during a race.
In the short time I've played City Racing 3D, it comes across as a decent Windows Phone racing game. Graphics are nicely drawn up and the races are challenging. My only grip with the game is that the directional steering buttons are simply too small. You can get used to them, but it sure would be nice if they were twice as large.
Could it knock off Asphalt 8, which I consider as the standard in Windows Phone racing games? It would be a tough nut to crack. I will say that City Racing 3D comes close but isn't as polished as Asphalt 8, has a smaller selection of cars and has fewer role-playing game features (upgrades/customizations). It's an enjoyable game and if you need a break from Asphalt 8, City Racing will fit the bill nicely.
City Racing 3D is a free, ad-supported Windows Phone game with banner ads running along the bottom of the screen and an occasional full-screen ad will appear. The banners are discrete enough to avoid ruining the racing experience, but I could live without the full-screen ads.
At last check, City Racing 3D scores a 4.5 Star rating in the Windows Phone Store, which we can agree with. If you give City Racing 3D a try, let us know what you think in the comments below.
Download City Racing 3D from the Windows Phone Store
AdDuplex HERO Promotion
AdDuplex is a fantastic resource for the cross-promotion of Windows Phone and Windows apps. AdDuplex has launched a new program designed to help developers promote their apps even further with free access to various tools and resources from AdDuplex.
The HERO Apps promotion partners AdDuplex with Windows Central, myAppFree, AppDeals and PluralSight to provide additional benefits to the top apps every month that include:
- Vouchers to advertise on AdDuplex
- One month subscription to Pluralsight Plus
- A featured campaign with myAppFree
- A featured campaign with AppDeals
- A review here on Windows Central
If you are a Windows or Windows Phone developer, you can sign up for the HERO Apps program here at AdDuplex's website. To participate in the program, you will need to apply within thirty days after your app or game has launched on the AdDuplex network.
Windows Central is already partnered with the myAppFree campaign and is proud to be partnering up with AdDuplex with the HERO Apps program. It is another excellent opportunity to help promote both the Windows Phone and Windows platform.
Keep in mind that the HERO Apps are different than what you find with the myAppFree deals. The HERO Apps are free, ad-supported titles that often have the option to remove the ad-support via in-app purchases. The myAppFree deal delivers a paid app or game at a discounted price or for free.
