Racing games are a genre that work very well on the iPhone, due to its intuitive accelerometer controls, and Asphalt 5 is the next to amaze. When we saw the initial clips of Asphalt 5’s gameplay, the first thing we noticed were its stunning graphics and after its release it doesn’t disappoint. With a smooth framerate, polished graphics, tons of tracks and cars, and online multiplayer, the only question you should be asking is where did Asphalt 5 go wrong?

Most of your time within Asphalt 5 will be spent in the career mode, since that is the only way to unlock new locations and cars. Starting with just two races open, you progress through your street racing career by winning races to earn cash and level up. This level system allows you to buy new cars, while completing the races themselves opens new tracks. The career mode itself contains not only general races but seven other types of race including: Drift, Cop Chase, Time Attack, Escape and Cash Attack. These many different types of races give the game an extremely good variety and prevent it from becoming repetitive.

On the other hand one particular race has caused us, and many others, a lot of trouble. The aim of the Cop Chase race is to play the role of the police and eliminate a certain amount of speeding street racers by pushing them against the sides of the track. This sounds easy enough but eliminating numerous opponents is a struggle and despite our prolonged efforts, we couldn’t pass most of the Cop Chase races. These races almost ruined the game for us, but because of the way races are unlocked, you can skip out most of them.

Single player, multiplayer over bluetooth and online mutliplayer are also included in Asphalt 5 and make it a true fully featured racer. In single player mode you can race on any track you’ve unlocked, however you can only play the typical race mode. The multiplayer over bluetooth is similar to the single player mode, while the online multiplayer has a few differences. You either play general races against players around the world, or join the Asphalt Academy. This is similar to Real Racing’s Cloudcell service where you can compete in tournaments to earn your place on the leaderboard. We think that these social gaming aspects included in the game are excellent and add some real competition to the game.

As we said at the start of this review, racing games are perfectly suited to the iPhone and the controls work well in Asphalt 5. Accelerometer controls are default but you can tune the controls to exactly how you want. The game also takes advantage of the 3.0 iPod music feature and allows you to play your iPod music in game via the unobtrusive and rather stylish car radio system. Gameloft has also added in some features that many developers rashly miss out. Things like the ability to flip the screen and having the iPhone status bar pop up when you pause the game make this a true iPhone game.

Need For Speed Undercover was really the first racing game to include full car customisation and Asphalt 5 follows in its footsteps. There are over 30 licensed cars available in the game, all of which you can customise to how you want. You can upgrade their stats, change their paint colour and add decals, all of which work perfectly and leave you with a car you’ll be proud to drive.

The Asphalt series has always been heavy on nitro use and Asphalt 5 is no exception. In order to get ahead of your enemies you’ll be pumping on the nitro switch, while drifting round corners and causing urban havoc to earn more. This leads to fun and exciting gameplay that can't always be achieved in a racing game. The wonderful graphics and smooth framerate make this game a winner, our only hope is that the Cop Chases are sorted out.

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