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Powerboat Challenge Lite

by Eric March on November 25, 2008 at 3:57 pm

Rate it:

(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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App Name: Powerboat Challenge Lite
Version: 1.0.1
Developer: Fish Labs
Category: Racing Games

Now that’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout.

Powerboat Challenge takes it to the water in a fast-paced and scenic challenge through narrow rivers to win races and style points good towards upgrades to parts of your boat.

Besides the standard racing component against AI players, Powerboat Challenge offers the chance to win “style points” — though I think the usage of that term is a bit of a malapropism, since it really doesn’t have much to do with the style points you might be used to in other racing games — that is, you aren’t awarded style points for various stunt moves. Instead, you get style points for rounding one particular side of buoys that are strewn about a course. The closer you come to the buoy, the better — but if you miss (that is, pass on the wrong side) you lose style points. So they’re not really style points, just … points.

Similarly, as you successfully pass buoys, you also gain boost points — 1 or 2 depending on how close you come. If you manage to fill up your turbo boost bar, you will be able to use your boost engine to rocket ahead for a short period of time. If you miss a buoy however, you lose all of your boost points.

Points points points. This word has now achieved semantic saturation in my brain, so I will cease to use it until such time as it regains meaning.

Control in the game can be handled two ways: Accelerometer, or — thankfully — touch control. I appreciate the inclusion of touch control because I really don’t like controlling things with the accelerometer. It’s gimmicky, but more to the point, it lacks the speed and precision of manual, digital controls. Granted, you lose some flexibility, but it’s still much easier.

Accelerometer-based soapbox aside, I found the controls to be very responsive, and the boat seemed to handle pretty much like boats do — which is to say, not like cars. Well, maybe like a mid-70s El Camino. Accessing the touch controls was pretty simple, too; left and right side of the screen were for turning, middle-top was to activate turbo boost (though you can tilt back for that, too, even in touch mode), and middle-bottom slamed on the brakes.

Most of the features of the full game — upgrading your boat, other tracks, characters, and race modes — are missing from this lite version, so I can’t given an opinion on that, but there is a tutorial mode which takes you through the marshy type track, and rewards your successful completion of the tutorial with a lap around the track in a fully upgraded boat, just to see what it’s like. The main track is some kind of arctic affair and it’s rather short, with some nasty narrow passes.

The visuals in this game are absolutely gorgeous. Fish Labs obviously took the time to make everything look as convincing as they could, and they achieved that in large part. The sound is quite good, too — everything is pretty much as you would expect that it should be with nothing particularly out of place or jarring.

Frankly, my only complaint here is the length of the tracks, or lack thereof. Since the full version only has 4, it seems like it would make for a fairly short game, even in spite of the various game modes you can engage in. Either more or longer tracks seem to be in order here in order to add some longevity.

Aside from that though Powerboat Challenge is an exceptionally well-done game. It’s got professional quality written all over it — aside from some nitpicky dialog in the game, which was written by someone for whom English obviously isn’t their first language. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. In spite of the small selection of tracks and the lengths thereof, the fact that the full version is a measly $2 still means you get your money’s worth, plus the ability to upgrade, choose other characters, and so on. Gotta go with another 5 star rating on this one.