New App

Real Racing 3, one of the most anticipated game releases for iOS for some time, has finally hit the App Store for download.  The photorealistic tracks and cars are real courses, brands and models respectively, making this version of Real Racing the most realistic racing game for iOS available.  Having been a long time racing game player on Xbox – F1 2012, Forza, etc – Real Racing 3 in many ways is better than a console game purely from a graphics perspective.

Interestingly, Electronic Arts has made Real Racing 3 a “Freemium” game meaning that the game itself is free but there are limitations in the game which you have to make in-app purchases to get around those limitations.  This model is nothing new – most of the top games in the App Store have this exact same model and, having played Real Racing 3 for a few hours now you can do a lot of racing without making a single in-app purchase.  But you have to be patience for things like repair times or when a car can become available after you purchase it, etc.

Let’s start with the basics:  Real Racing 3 is a whopping 750MB download.  Yes, all those pretty graphics come at a price, namely storage space on your iPhone, iPad, iPad Mini or iPod Touch.  EA recommends that you have at least 2GB free space on your device to play the game as it will need to do a lot of graphics caching to work properly (i.e. frame rates).  You will have to download it via iTunes or via WiFi from your device directly.  The game is supported on the iPhone 4, 4S and 5, iPad 2, iPad 3rd & 4th generation, iPod Touch 4th and 5th generation, and iPad Mini.  The afore in-app purchases range in price from $1.99 to $19.99.

Racing Circuits of Real Racing 3

One of the big changes to Real Racing 3 over previous versions of the game is the inclusion of real racing circuits.  These race tracks include some of the most famous from around the world and the FireMonkey development team of EA spent hundreds of hours at the actual tracks to get the details right.  That work paid off – for you.  Now you can race on circuits such as Mazda Raceway Leguna Seca (USA), Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps (Belgium), Silverstone (England), Indianpolis Motor Speedway (USA), Suzuki Circuit (Japan) and Hockenheimring (Germany) just to name a few.  Having these real course pulls you even further into the racing experience where you get to figure out how to control the car through the almighty

Real Racing 3 has real tracks from around the world

Eau Rouge turn at Spa for example.  If you are a Formula 1 fan, ALMS or World Endurance fan, you will smile when you get to race around one of these circuits.

The work the FireMonkey team put into getting these circuits accurate is evident the first lap you turn at them.  The textures of the circuits are superb and the surrounding backgrounds of the circuits are accurate to the finest level.  Once you see one of the tracks you will quickly figure out where the bulk of the 750MB download came from on the install.  But it is worth it.

There are other little detailed improvements to the game like a working rear view mirror in the cars.  This is thanks to the Mint 3  Engine that is being used to render the graphics being able to keep up with the game play.

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Clinton

Clinton is the editor of AlliOSNews.com. He has been writing opinions, reviews, how to's and anything related to the mobile communications market since 1999. You can follow Clinton on Twitter @AlliOSNews

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