Asphalt 8: Airborne is a very racing game, perilously tied to a frustrating business model. The sheer sensation of speed and momentum, natural controls, and wealth of content make it highly recommendable, but it has a tendency to put up unnecessary roadblocks with constant reminders that you can purchase your way around them.
Asphalt 8’s addition to the series, the air stunts, are a nice twist that offer nitro boosts as rewards, which gives them a risk-reward dynamic. Taking to the air is often slower than sticking to the streets, so making split-second decisions about whether I could spare that time to make it up with the boost I’d earn helps add tension to races. The physics occasionally behave erratically, leading to a jump or spin not behaving like you’d expect and flubbing the trick. It’s rare, but it can be a bother.
Asphalt is lengthy, offering eight seasons of increasing speed classes and 180 races in all, plus a full-fledged online mode with all the maps and race types available. Most of the races are standard multi-car or one-on-one matches. The longevity is a double-edged sword to some extent, since the large number of events means each of those maps get repeated several times. Sure, it’s fun speeding down the streets of Barcelona in a faster car, but after a dozen or so times I knew the turns so well that I’d either win easily, or be hopelessly outmatched by better cars. Skill was no longer the deciding factor; it all came down to purchasing better vehicles.
A few modes do offer more inventive race types. Infection became a quick favorite of mine – it gives all the “infected” racers unlimited boosts, but with the constant threat of burning out once the infection passes if you fail to add time by spreading it. Another mode, Knockdown, emphasizes the race aspect and instead has you attempt to cause more crashes than your opponent.
To keep these events spread out, the pacing is dictated by collecting stars to unlock new seasons of races. They’re granted by winning races, or fulfilling special conditions like a certain number of drifts or takedowns. Within the seasons, certain events require a particular car that can be purchased with in-game currency. By the time I reached the mid-point, the hodgepodge of car requirements felt like an unworkable maze. I constantly needed more stars, but by that point progression required me to spend a large wad of cash on a car that might only be useful for one event. I would begrudgingly buy it, earn the five stars available in that event, and then go looking for another that could slowly inch me towards the next season.