‘Breitling Reno Air Races’ iOS Review

An impressive new flight game by Bulkypix is out now for the iOS and has no problem standing out from other flight titles in the app store. Based on a real life air race event, Breitling Reno Air Races delivers a great flight sim experience with an exciting racing style.

The tag line for the race is “Fly low. Go fast. Turn left.” and that echoes the rules of the game. In Breitling Reno Air Races, you are in a flight race against other pilots where the course holds a low flight path with each check marker on the left hand side.

The game features two game modes: Quick Play, and Air Race.

Quick play is a way to effortlessly jump into a game. You’ll automatically get matched up with other opponents and random variables like the time of day.

Air Race is basically the career mode for the game. Within Air Race, you can choose to learn the ropes with a tutorial or jump in either single player or multiplayer. You can customize the time of day, plane class, lap count, number of planes in the race and the difficulty.

The game also pre-rolls a live-action short to set the tone of the game and add a bit of story to the premise. Take a peek at the movie below:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5HIR0aNtvg

As you complete each race, you will earn experience to advance your rank. Each rank unlocks new paint jobs or planes for you to use in the game. The customization of your plane is pretty generous, you can either select a preset paint job or modify the color scheme yourself.

The controls are comprised by a mix of gyroscope, accelerometer and touch. The gyro and accelerometer will handle the turning and elevation where the touch controls will handle speed and turning assist.

Breitling Reno Air Races also completes the social integration with OpenFeint and Game Center support.

There aren’t any other flight sim style games in the app store that come in such a complete package as Breitling Reno Air Races does. The graphics are gorgeous with the lighting detail and geographical textures. The inclusion of multiplayer is always a bonus and the customization and leveling system  are aspects that are almost always necessary in a game to aid in the immersion and personalization of the experience.

Despite the positive graphics, the game is based on one location only – Reno. Each race is the same desert landscape and it gets a little stale playing the same location over and over. It would be great if they could open it up to other areas to mix up the locations.

Controls are always a battle on the iOS, and although they aren’t horrible in Breitling Reno Air Races the turning does feel a bit stiff off the bat. This can be remedied by unlocking other planes, but you’ll have to stick with the tough turning until you get to a rank that unlocks a plan with better handling.

Overall, Breitling Reno Air Races is an excellent flight racing game for the iOS. There are plenty of features that enhance the quality of the game and it offers a positive experience for the casual mobile gamer as well as the flight sim junky.

Breitling Reno Air Races is available now, for free, in the iOS app store.

Take a look at the official trailer below:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU0yyynnwy4

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