Rage on Wheels is a motorcycle racing game for your Windows Phone with a bit of a combat twist to it. Rage on Wheels has 3D graphics, four game modes and a dynamic physics engine that offers fairly realistic motorcycle handling.
Game play is challenging enough to keep you interested in things but controls take a little time to get used to. Rage on Wheels has the potential of being an entertaining Windows Phone game but as is, it may leave you a little frustrated.
The main menu for Rage on Wheels has options to play the game, access your Club House, view your Initiations (achievements?), view your unlockables (upgrades), and access the game options. Options include vibration/music on or off, graphics quality, and if you want to base the time of day (day/night) on the actual time of day. Night racing can be rather challenging and it's neat that the game's time of day can mirror the actual time of day.
The Clubhouse is where you can sign into your Score Loop account, create and manage a motorcycle club, and view incoming gaming challenges.
There are four game modes to Rage on Wheels that includes:
- Classic Race: This is your typical start to finish race through various locations. Along the way you can collect items that can be used to take out your competition or you can simply ride up along side them and punch the daylights out of them. Acceleration is automatic, you only need to worry about steering the bike.
- Drag Race: Again, this is a start to finish race like the Classic Race but steering is automatic. You control the gear shifts by swiping up/down at the screen. It's not the smoothest of controls and will test your patience.
- Daredevil: Here's is where you test your skills at close calls. You weave in and out of traffic to see how close you can get to cars. You control the steering while acceleration is automatic.
- Hot Pursuit: This game mode has you chasing down crooks to collect stolen money. You can collect items along the route to take out the crooks or you can use your punching action to take them out.
- Rolling Dead: Another racing mode but here you have to deal with Zombies. Steering is automatic and you control the gear shifting to reach the finish line as fast as possible, avoiding letting your infection meter max out.
Steering is done by tilting your Windows Phone and shifting gears is accomplished by swiping up or down at the screen. I would have rather seen an on-screen button to tap to shift than the swiping. There were times the screen swipes didn't do the trick. The swipe to punch action on the other hand was a lot more responsive.
As you complete races you earn experience which in turn unlocks your unlockables which includes more racing venues, larger engines, and improved skills.
Rage on Wheels isn't a bad game for your Windows Phone. It just needs a little fine tuning. For starters the menu fonts is a little on the small side (either that or I need to visit the eye doctor) and the option for on-screen controls would help, mostly with the gear shifting. I wouldn't mind seeing a centralized help section but Rage on Wheels does offer detailed instructions prior to the start of each game.
Overall, Rage on Wheels is worth a try. Graphics are nice, game play challenging, and the crashes can be rather dramatic. Rage on Wheels is a free, ad-supported game for Windows Phone 8 and 7.x. You can find Rage on Wheels here in the Windows Phone Store.
Reader comments
Rage on Wheels, burning rubber and punching out the competition
Sweet gonna have to try it out!
Obligatory "What is this weeks WP xbl game??"
Don't think we're getting one, so what, that makes 3 weeks in a row now. Woot keep it up MSFT.
What makes you say that though??
Usually got it by now. Ain't gots none yet.
They usually come up between 6-9pm here in the UK and its only 4pm so loads of time yet
will try it out , doesn't look bad
Its about time someone made a road rash clone. I used to love that game.
Cool story bro, but where is this weeks Xbox live game, bro?
don't think there will be one this week either
Hey bra, hope we get one bra. We don't, this bra is going to be pissed bra. We need one bra. Bra out
I know this is off topic but can someone please remind me when is halo coming
Sometime mid month I believe
ok thanks
Mid July, sources presumed July 17th as the candidate date
it looks cool ill try it
G
Lol, why can't this be the XBL title of this week :(
Yeah, its really not that great. I give "A" for effort though. Keep on keeping on. That's what I say, whatever that means.
Wow, it's a really bad game. Delete.
Font too small? Just use the zoom-mode for your eyes i.e. Move your head closer to the screen :P :P
Reminds me of road rash ! <3
btw is it only me, or the controls are really annoying??
Ha, it reminded of that too. Good game.
One more week without xbox game release (again)
Can't wait to upgrade to an iPhone
Not only for the variety of games/apps but because the WP OS is Trementously BUGGY!!!
There have been better games launched on Windows Phone in recent months that I've yet to see mentioned here on WP Central. So why run a story on this one?
I'm sorry to say, but Rage on Wheels amateurish on multiple levels. It's got potential, but there's so much about this game that's clumsy from the controls to graphics. Even something as basic as camera angle isn't right; the camera is pointed too down and sits too close to the rider. So I can barely see down the road but I get a clear view of the rider's terrible geometry.
I'm always reluctant to be critical with these small developers, but the quality of this game isn't acceptable when you compare it to all the high quality indie games out there. I normally wouldn't care, but there's a drought of good games on Windows Phone and an endless stream of low quality crap. This game is better than many of those, but I wouldn't actually consider it good.
On an unrelated note, has anyone had trouble submitting ratings? I haven't been able to post reviews a few times myself and I've noticed some games stuck with only a few reviews; the most recent review going back a week or two.
Could you mention the names of some of these good indie games please?
Hey, I developed the game and I would like to say thanks for your honest opinion.
I would also like to respond to your comments.
About the controls, I thought they were quite simple! What is clumsy about tilt to steer? The gear shifting in the drag race is picky because you have to shift at a very specific moment (right as the rpms max out). If you try to spam swiping the gear will get stuck (to avoid cheaters). If it was too easy to shift, everyone on the scoreboard would have a perfect run and have the same score!
About the graphics, most games are 2D so I wanted to stand out with 3D but that comes at a price with xna. If there were more geometry the game and custom lighting system would be too slow. I have seen a lot of comments about other games that complain about not supporting WP7 but my game does. I had to sacrifice superficial geometry to make that happen. If the levels were static and pre-made it might not be a problem but they are actually randomly generated every few seconds (which includes calculating lighting and building physics items).
That actually leads me to your comment on the camera being too low. If the camera was too high, there might not be anything to actually see because the road might not be generated yet (like temple run). It actually benefits the player to see the area around the rider because then its much easier to fight the other riders.
I will take all your comments into consideration for the next update though. Maybe I will make an option to have onscreen buttons (which I thought people hated but we'll see).
Thanks.
And thanks for reviewing the game George!
PS. If you guys are experiencing inverted steering, just hold the phone with the buttons on the right side. I just submitted a fix for it.