Considering the depth and breadth of creepiness on the app store, it’s a relatively unobtrusive and victimless promotional technique, but there we are. Motorsport Manager offers bribes in the form of in-game currency in exchange for sharing things. There is real “social integration” in a few spots. This narrative is commented on through a fake twitter feed that sees fans, drivers and sponsors weighing in on events, though it’s a bit repetitive and bland it doesn’t hold a candle to the absurdist Byrdr posts of Ridiculous Fishing. The tournament structure lends itself to comebacks and dramatic fights for survival. Losing a few races and not receiving the prize money you were counting on when you commissioned that new test track can be devastating. Successful racing leads to a progression through successively more difficult tournaments, requiring more and more expensive employees and facilities, which raises the stakes significantly. Throw in a variety of unpredictable catastrophes, and it’s never boring. It doesn’t seem like a lot to deal with, but with two drivers and at times a thin margin for error (and the ability to run the simulation at high speed), it’s enough to require a surprising amount of alertness. This impacts tire wear, and thus the player’s decision of when to have the drivers pit and what kind of tires to use (be they soft, hard or designed for wet conditions). At any given time, drivers can push the performance of their cars, drive conservatively or something in between. Again, managing the action comes down to a few simple choices with immediately comprehensible effects. If that sounds a little boring or fiddly, there is always a recommended setup that will yield reasonable results.įinally, the heart of the game is in the races. A simple matrix of gearing, aerodynamic and tire options creates a variety of configurations, and a little intuition and experimentation is required to achieve the best standing. The second phase is setting qualifying times for races to determine racer positions. So-called dilemmas crop up periodically, forcing on-the-spot binary choices requiring some sort of sacrifice. Foremost is the task of establishing and running the team, which entails hiring and firing drivers and engineers, allocating research, courting sponsors and fans, etc. The only disappointment in this area is on the audio side the front-end is backed by a very short music loop that grates quickly, and the sound effects during races seem to have no particular relation to the on-screen action, though they effectively establish a racetrack ambiance.Īctivities in the game may broadly be considered in three categories. Presentationally, we’re a far cry from the stodginess of the average sports management simulation. Motorsport Manager makes an immediately striking impression with a stylish color palette, and a nifty tilt–shift camera effect replete with chromatic aberration. Motorsport Manager finds a nice spot in the complexity spectrum wherein it requires frequent decision-making, without ever inducing paralysis by presenting too many options simultaneously. It’s never overwhelming, nor is it too light to maintain interest. A half-hour in, I realized I hadn’t absorbed a word, because I was so fully engaged in growing my fledgeling racing empire and watching my drivers tear up the track. After all, I wouldn’t be expected to drive the cars I’d be running the biz and laying out the race strategy. When I sat down to try Motorsport Manager ($5.99), I thought it would be the perfect thing to poke at while listening to a podcast.
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