Ridge Racer Accelerated for the iPhone and iPod Touch

We briefly mentioned it a few weeks ago on DoubleTap, but here's a fuller look at Ridge Racer: Accelerated for the iPhone and iPod Touch. As mentioned in the video review, if you're looking for a racing game, you can't help but be seduced by the graphics from the screenshots, and even the intro movie for the game promises heart-pounding entertainment.

Most of that disappears shortly after your car leaves the start line. Up until the second corner, I thought "this is the best racing game yet" for the iPhone. Well, once you get to that corner, it becomes apparent that the game is hobbled either by graphics code that's not efficient enough, or graphics that are beyond the capability of the iPhone processor. Bear in mind this game was reviewed on an iPhone 3GS. Customers have also complained about the frame rate being significantly worse on older models, particularly the iPod Touch. A recent update seems to have helped many people with that issue, but our iPhone 3GS performance lagged.

The game also comes with a limited number of cars and tracks, with more tracks available for in-app purchase. Perhaps these intro tracks should be free if additional tracks will cost you more.

Still, with a few tweaks to make the graphics fly by, and some changes to the revenue model, this could be a solid racing game for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

(iTunes Link)

Here's a look: