Snow Moto Racing, Resolution Interactive’s third installment in their Moto Racing series, is now available from the app store. As the first snowmobiling game created for the iDevice, Snow Moto Racing offers enjoyable, albeit short, gameplay at an affordable price.
Snow Moto’s predecessor, Dirt Moto Racing, was a tremendous game, featuring 5 game modes, 8 tours, 36 events, 16 stunts, vehicle tuning options, online leaderboards, achievements, and more. Sadly, Snow Moto features very little in comparison. There are 2 game modes: single player and multiplayer (via local Bluetooth). There are only 6 tracks, each of which takes around 2 minutes to complete. You race against 7 AI-controlled opponents, whose skill can be set at Easy, Medium, Hard, or Dynamic. Playing against racers at the Dynamic setting, we were able to achieve Gold on all 6 tracks in about a half hour. Of the 14 achievements, we finished 10 during that time, and two of them involved checking out the More Games section and the Credits section, not much of an accomplishment. While Snow Moto’s base price is 20% of Dirt Moto’s, we did not expect the same depth by any means. However, even for a dollar, the quick completion of the game left us wanting much more.
Gameplay itself was exciting. The graphics look terrific, with surprising crispness and clarity, except on Blizzard Run, though its murkiness is by design. The graphics were actually what drew us to the game in the first place. During gameplay, it’s not uncommon to crash into another rider and get tossed from your rig. At one point, we came upon a scene where half of the riders were on the ground in various stages of tumble. The AI puts up a decent effort, though we didn’t have much trouble coming out on top. We could perform tricks while going off of jumps simply by tapping the center of the screen. This was disappointing, too, as we couldn’t control what trick was performed, as in Dirt Moto, where a directional swipe determined flips, spins, and other maneuvers. Also, we had a tendency to tap more in the lower right corner than the center, missing a few opportunities to land tricks and receive that all-important speed burst afterward. Steering was controlled by tilting the device, and this worked very well. The soundtrack was upbeat and added to the overall action. Snow Moto supports playing tracks from your own library.
Replay value is middling, dependent solely on your willingness to keep playing levels that you’ve beaten over and over again. With the achievements being accomplished so quickly, they don’t offer any incentive to keep playing. As the first and only snowmobile racer, it’s a lot of fun and a terrific opening act. The bar has been set high. We were just disappointed that the full version feels so much like a lite version. At $0.99, Snow Moto Racing is priced appropriately, receiving a 4-Dimple rating.
Snow Moto Racing gets our AppSmile 4-Dimple rating:
