The original Real racing for the iOS is surely stunning but what about Real Racing 2? is it better? or worse?. I’ve borrowed my cousin’s iPod Touch 3G since my iPod Touch is still at iStore Manila and saw that he has Real Racing 2 already in his iPod. So I’ve got a chance to play with it for some time.
The original Real racing received a lot of praises because of its awesome graphics and everybody expect that its sequel, Real Racing 2 will still be stunning just like the original game. A lot of racing games are present in the Apple App store but I think Firemint’s Real Racing 2 is the best racing game developed for the iOS.

Career mode was added to Real Racing 2 which promises 10 hours of gameplay with elimination, head to head, single cup races, championships and more. There are 5 game modes available in-game, they are Quick race, time trial, career, local multiplayer or online multiplayer.

You can also try  the multiplayer via local or online which is up to 16 players, a first for the iOS. Achievements and leaderboards on Game Center is also present but if you don’t have a Game Center for your iPhone or iPod Touch you can still be connected using Firemint’s Cloudcell technology

Car market was also added in the game, instead of unlocking cars in the original game in real racing 2 you need to buy them and those cars that are available in the market are real (oh I mean that they are really available in the real world not like in the original game, some of the cars were created by firemint). You can buy those cars using the in-game currency that you can earn by racing. There are 30 available licensed cars in the game  which include McLaren, Ford, Nissan & more. You can check out the list of cars at http://www.firemint.com/r2

My favorite new feature of Real Racing 2 is the car damage. Yes, you can see the car damage but it will take a lot of bumps before you can see the damage but hey, this is an iPhone game, Gran Turismo PSP has no car damage feature.

When you start the game, you will be given a small amount of cash and you will obviously need that to buy a car and as I said earlier there are 30 available cars in the game which I think is already enough but Gameloft’s GT Racing Academy has a hundred cars on its garage. So Firemint please, add more cars to your car market I hope that there will be updates to add some new cars.

You can still choose whether you like your car to be controlled using the accelerometer or the touch screen. I’ve notice that controlling the car using the accelerometer has been improved, I’ve feel comfortable with that and I prefer that over the other control mode. There are also 5 camera views that you can choose from.

The graphics of the original game made our jaws dropped already but real racing 2 has been optimized for OpenGL ES2 and retina display. The graphics has been improved, there are blurry effects, the cars became more realistic but I notice that it lacks anti-aliasing on the iPod Touch 3G. Maybe it is just a bug or something but the graphics of the game is better

All in all, Firemint offers us another “must-have” game for our iOS device. The graphics are crisp, the gameplay is awesome, multiplayer and gamecenter support is present. This is one of the best game in the iOS and I recommend you guys to get at the iTunes store for only $9.99.

I’m sure you’ll find the game worthy. if you want to buy it just check it out at http://itunes.apple.com/ph/app/real-racing-2/id386568787?mt=8 and if you want to check Firemint’s website just click here.