Top Gear: Drift Legends is a fast-paced arcade game that is available for both Windows 10 PC and Mobile. The game challenges your skills at drift racing around a large collection of racetracks.
The racing game has two difficulty modes, six racing cars and plenty of track to slide around. Graphics for the over-head game look good and gameplay is full of challenges. It may take you a few rounds of play to get the handle on drifting your car, but the game's controls are plenty responsive.
We took the Windows Mobile version of the game out for a test drive (if you'll pardon the pun) and overall, found Top Gear: Drift Legends to be an entertaining addition to the Top Gear collection of mobile games. However, it may have a narrow audience appeal.
Your main menu with Top Gear: Drift Legends holds options to start a gaming season, play a training game, access the game's options and view the gaming credits. Gaming options for Top Gear: Drift Legends covers steering controls, steering sensitivity, sound effects and music levels.
The Mobile version has two steering control options, one for on-screen buttons and another for an on-screen steering wheel. Tilt controls are not an option and of the choices available, I liked the buttons a little better than the steering wheel. I found it difficult to spin the steering wheel around while holding the phone or tablet.
The PC version includes keyboard control options and support for Xbox controllers as well as the on-screen touch options (where a touchscreen is available). You will still have the on-screen controls visible, but will use the directional arrows to steer and accelerate your car.
Gameplay offers a season mode and a training mode. The training mode is simply a practice round to let you get used to the gaming controls or just fine-tune your drift skills. The season mode offers two difficulties: novice and expert. The novice game offers tighter handling and easier controls while the expert mode offers more realistic drifts and higher scoring opportunities.
Once you choose your difficulty level, the next task is to pick your car. When you first begin playing Top Gear: Drift Legends, the choice is easy because you only have one car available. As you advance through the game, five more cars will become available to race. The collection isn't as large as you would expect, but does include racing cars, pickup trucks and a few sedans.
Gameplay involves racing across twenty-five tracks that are spread across five countries. Your career begins in New Zealand and as you progress through the game, you will visit the U.S., Europe, Japan and Australia. Tracks within each country are also progressively unlocked. You can replay each track and when you do, a ghost racer will appear to chart your last effort on that particular track.
Top Gear: Drift Legends will place you on a short track with plenty of curves to drift your way through. The goal is to make it from start to finish as quickly as possible and drift as much as possible for points. You have drift areas (highlighted in yellow) that are your target areas, but you can (and will) drift just about anywhere on the course.
You can crash your car and simply will have to steer your way around the tree, road sign or another item you have slammed into. The final score at the end of your race takes into account your best drift score, time to finish and total drift time. You score has to be high enough to medal and advance to the next track.
Overall Impression
Top Gear: Drift Legends is a fun game to spend a little time, but it does have a decent learning curve. Don't be shocked if for the first few games you find your car constantly sliding from one side of the racetrack to the other. Drift Legends will test your timing skills, finesse, and patience in steering and hitting the accelerator at the right time as you head into a curve to get the most drift points.
I don't really have any complaints about the graphic quality. For an overhead racing game, the graphics are nice and about average, and though I wouldn't mind a little more detail with the cars or track, but what is in place works for the gaming style.
While Top Gear: Drift Legends is an entertaining racing game, I don't think it will set the Windows gaming world on fire. Drift Legends is more of a specialized racing game and while it has appeal, it may be more of a niche game. If you don't care too much for drifting, I can see the game being frustrating and not as appealing.
There is a trial version available to let you try out the first five tracks. The full game is running $1.99 and is available for both Windows 10 PC and Mobile.
Download Top Gear: Drift Legends for Windows 10 PC and Mobile
