Asphalt 3D is the latest Need For Speed knock-off from the people that brought you Assassin’s Creed. It is not a good game, plain and simple. From the intro movie to the actual gameplay, everything feels off.

From the very beginning, the game gives off a bad impression. When you turn on the game, the first thing you see in Asphalt 3D is a laggy intro movie. You read that right: the opening movie lags. It is very awkward that within the first two minutes of starting the game, it already shows a lack of attention to detail.

Even if you are able to look past that and start the game with no judgment, disappointment will set in as soon as you start to play. The game puts you directly into the first race with no tutorial included to explain the controls. While the controls are typical of a racing game, without experience of the genre you would be completely lost. Moving the car is only about a third of the battle, you must also figure out what all the power-ups mean (there appears to be boost and money among them), learn how to maintain a consistent speed so you can catch up to the other racers, and then you must manage the difficult task of not crashing and dying. 

The crashes in Asphalt 3D are probably the most frustrating part of the game. You don’t see the car coming towards you until it’s two inches from the hood of your car. After the car crash you start back on the track and then you must slowly work your way up to a speed where you can catch up to the last place car without crashing again, an unlikely event.

This game does nothing to represent the capabilities of the Nintendo 3DS. The graphics are not only lackluster, marginally better than cheap racing titles found on smartphones, but make it difficult to play the game, The cars look cool, as do the environments, but only when things are standing still. Once things start moving it’s hard to tell the difference between a turn and a dead end. When you turn on 3D, the only difference is that you can kind of see inside the car, but there is no time for that in a racing title. The music is also lackluster, portions of songs play over and over in the background as you listen to cars obnoxiously honk at you as you scrape past them. While this could be said to be a realistic effect, no one plays racing games to listen to constant car horns.

The only redeeming quality of the game is the unlockables. There are over 40 cool-looking cars you can unlock along with a plethora of courses. All this means nothing to you though, if you can’t get past the first batch of races. Even if you’re a fan of racing games, think twice before buying this game.