Xbox on Windows Phone Review: Cracking Sands

Cracking Sands Lead

The Xbox on Windows Phone lineup is starting to amass a fair selection of racing games. Nosotros've got street racers, kart racers, and ane awesome boat racer (Hydro Thunder GO). Now a new entry has come up forth: Swell Sands - published by Microsoft and programmed by Swedish programmer Polarbit, who too fabricated Reckless Racing for Windows 8. If y'all're looking for a racer that looks and plays differently from the others, Keen Sands might just fit the bill.

What'south in a name?

The English language student in me can't aid trying to dissect this game's unusual title. Does information technology mean that sand is swell part? Or that something called 'Corking' actually distributes sand to things? Hmm…

My best gauge is the championship's 'nifty' is the British slang use of the word, meaning impressive or peachy. "That'due south a peachy good beige, govnah!" I can just hear Windows Phone Key's Rich Edmonds remark. And then, patently the sand in this game is smashing. Still, fifty-fifty if we accept that meaning, it doesn't exactly draw a racing game very well, does it? Peradventure it makes more than sense in northern Swedonia from whence the game hails.

Downwards to business

Cracking Sands

Silly title aside, Crackings Sands is an ATV (all-terrain vehicle or four-wheeler) racer. Groups of tiny male or female racers who resemble Xbox Live Avatars but with far less polygons bulldoze around a handful of mildly fantastical tracks, each selfishly trying to come in outset, the jerks.

The game consists of 2 primary modes: Campaign and Single Race. The latter starts out locked, but every bit you complete cups in the campaign, four Unmarried Race types eventually unlock. The showtime blazon, Fourth dimension Trial, is exclusive to Single Race every bit information technology doesn't plow up in the Campaign. Equally you lot'd expect, Time Trial allows players to race on the rail of their selection without competing against AI racers. It also supports downloading your Xbox Live friends' ghosts and competing against those, which y'all'll need to do for an Achievement.

Campaign

Cracking Sands

The campaign is divided into four cups. Once you consummate every race in a cup, the next one unlocks. To unlock individual races within a loving cup, you'll need to earn a certain number of stars from other races in that cup. Coming in outset gets you three stars, second 2 stars, and tertiary one star. Any place lower and you fail the race.

Three types of races pop upwardly in Campaign:

Race: Vanilla racing. Complete a certain number of laps.
Elimination: The racer in last place after each lap gets eliminated.
Head of the Pack: A sort of king-of-the-colina race. Every five consecutive seconds that you remain in starting time identify earns a indicate. Reach the race'due south point goal to win. If you don't get into first place rapidly, the AI volition likely win.

The game has four unique environments, three of which take three track variants and one with iv variants. That makes for a total of 13 tracks, though it feels like less because of the recycled environments. How many of those environments are actually sandy?? Just one: the Guano Desert. Pirate Bay has lots of lava, Downtown holds a ruined city, and Creek Mountain features water and mountains.

Difficulty curve

Initially, many players will struggle to even consummate races in third place, let lone accomplish commencement. The AI racers are extremely aggressive and will nail you with advanced weapons from the showtime. If you're not terrible at racers, you should be able to kickoff passing races before long.

The coins you find scattered throughout the track and the money yous get from coming in third identify or higher up will let you to buy upgrades and become more competitive. After a few upgrades, the game actually gets easier, and I oftentimes came in outset place on my first try. That said, several races in the fourth cup return to frustrating difficulty. Enemies pummel you lot with weapons repeatedly and it sometimes feels similar yous need luck to come out on top.

Garage band

Cracking Sands

I'm not referring to the game's single music track, which gets old very apace. Come on developers, the public domain is your friend.

Actually, the Garage is where you'll go to buy upgrades and equip weapons. Note that each type of upgrade really has multiple subcategories to choose from! They're like shooting fish in a barrel to miss, which could put new players at a disadvantage.

Character: Buy skins, hats, eyes, and mouths for your racer. This category is extraneous, so you'll probably want to salve your money for the bodily upgrades.
Vehicle: Buy new ATVs, engines, and tires. Each raises one or more stats, which can make a big difference in winning races. Purchase the best engine every bit shortly as possible.
Weapons: These come up in offensive, defensive, and other. I institute rockets and mines to be the about useful early on, but buying and upgrading the weapons that have their own Achievements is important too.

I ran so far away

Cracking Sands

The camera takes a zoomed-out third person view, giving a much more than distant await at the action than previous Xbox Windows Phone racers. Don't confuse it for a top-down racer (à la One thousand Theft Machine 1 and two), though; Smashing Sands still plays like a more than traditional racing game.

The distant view lets you see more of the surroundings to your side than a close perspective would, just information technology besides makes information technology hard to discern environmental details. Objects routinely block the histrion'southward view of his or her vehicle and the path ahead. In all likelihood the zoom level was probably chosen to hide the relative low allegiance of the graphics from the player. It doesn't hurt the game too much, only information technology takes some getting used to.

Controls

Cracking Sands

Tilting to steer the vehicles works well. Your ATV automatically accelerates and there is no brake push. The default control scheme allows y'all to tap anywhere on the left side of the screen to jump. Putting your correct thumb downward on the right side causes four item buttons to pop up, at which point you sort of rock your finger in the direction of the item yous want to utilise. Bluntly, this method of item selection is similar trying to brush someone else'south teeth while they're riding a mechanical bull. Challenging, but non fun.

You'll want to turn off those 'floating action buttons' right away. With that option off, the buttons but have defended places on screen. Unfortunately, jumping reverts to single tiny button on the left of the screen. I wish we could just tap anywhere on the left with floating action buttons deactivated.

Achievements

The game has Achievements for getting three stars in every race, a couple of Time Trial Achievements, 2 for buying and upgrading every unmarried weapon, and several weapon-specific Achievements. I actually institute some of the weapon Achievements (like the freeze ray one) to be tough considering when you're in showtime (which you take to exist merely about the whole fourth dimension in gild to avoid losing) you won't become to shoot them. Still, as long equally y'all master the game'due south difficulty curve, you can probably get them all in just a day or two.

Overall Impression

Nifty Sands' difficulty curve volition probably scare off casual players, which is a shame. Getting shot to pieces by the other racers is definitely annoying; I almost wish weapons could exist disabled. The game also crashed and glitched on me a few times, merely it'south less buggy than Extraction, at least. Those annoyances bated, Dandy Sands does take a terrific upgrade system and a fairly well laid-out campaign, which puts information technology above Demand for Speed: Hot Pursuit and Asphalt 5 in my eyes. If you're fairly good at racing games or desire some pretty fast Achievements, take a crack at these sands.

Slap-up Sands costs $two.99 an there is a free trial. Get information technology here on the Windows Phone Store.

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