If you're looking for a new racing game on your Switch, Asphalt 9: Legends could be just the ticket. The game is available to download for free as we speak.
It actually launched for the console yesterday, bringing with it an extensive roster of real hypercars from the likes of Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini and more. Players can pick their dream ride and race across spectacular locations around the world, leaving their friends in the dust and aiming to become a "legend".
The free-to-play mechanics can be a nuisance - as they so often are - but if you enjoy the base game, we stumbled across one particular payment that gets rid of the misery once and for all, and it still works out cheaper than any AAA racer. We talk about that and more - including why we think the racing itself is definitely worth your time - in our full review. Here's a snippet of what we had to say:
"The one area in which it very much overachieves is by far the most important one: on the road. Once you’re past all the nonsense and are actually power-sliding into speed boosts, ploughing opponents into barriers, hitting angled jumps and barrel-rolling over fences into alternate paths, it’s ridiculously good fun. Take into account how long the Career mode is – you’re easily talking well over 100 hours, and that’s if you’re really good and don’t have to replay any races".
Do you think this might be worth checking out? Are you out there on the track already? Let us know in the comments below.
Comments 34
Got it! Loving it!
While I'm enjoying Horizon Chase Turbo I may try it just to see how good online play is.
This is pretty amazing, I am actually very surprised.
I have 2 BIG Problems With The Game, 1 I Need Internet To Play,
2, You Have To Have Fuel In Your Car
Played this a lot yesterday, and having way too much fun with it. Really enjoying the Quick Race mode a lot. The F2P microtransactions won't be a bother, most F2P games I play for free anyway.
@EpicGamenator Outside the initial playing of career mode, once quick race and split screen is unlocked early on, it doesn't need internet to play. quick race is its own mode with challenges separate from career mode. Also, the fuel element is not in quick race.
I played it for a few minutes last night. It's quite impressive, but the F2P mechanics and the AU$31 purchase (which offers just a few vehicle unlocks and in-game currency) is a garbage value proposition.
Release it as a full game on cartridge and we'll talk.
Had this been a demo for a full game, I would have seriously considered a purchase. I like to have at least one non-Mario Kart racing game per generation, but Gameloft have screwed this one up. They were quite prolific during the DS/DSi days and covered a lot of niche genres. I'd be interested to see what they come up with next, but not if it's mobile-style trash.
Been playing it for about two hours yesterday evening, and I'm REALLY enjoying it so far. It looks great, feels good to play, and all the whining about the f2p mechanics is MASSIVELY over-exaggerated.
In the time I've played, I've been able to unlock three new cars, and to almost fully upgrade all of them as well. And I've unlocked two championships, joined an online team, and received quite a few free bonuses.
It would seem to me that this is the arcade racer equivalent of Warframe: both are very good games in their own genre, and as long as you don't mind the extra bit of grinding, you can get quite far and unlock quite a lot of stuff without ever having to pay a single dime.
Far as I'm concerned, this should be an absolute must-have for arcade racing lovers, because it's a lot of fun to play.
And I'm also really digging getting to use the 360 spin to destroy the other cars...
Fine game, at least in this game you can get pretty much everything fairly easy without spending a penny, as long you have some patience (especially that) and skills.
However I will play the one on the 3DS and Vita more, simply because those (and the previous ones on ethe PSP and DS) are full games made for those systems only.
gameloft has done work with tencent before. i’m boycotting anything and everything tencent has had their hands in until the chinese gov releases control of the gaming industry.
@Sunsy Thank You
Played four or so races last night and really enjoyed it. Great graphics and the gameplay is like Cruis'n USA 64 with much tighter controls. The 360 takedown move is pretty cool too. Seems very promising.
@ThanosReXXX I have to agree with this as I played a lot of this game yesterday, and have yet to pay for anything I unlocked. I understand why F2P games do have microtransactions, I think this is the standard loot boxes have set sadly.
@EpicGamenator You're welcome. Once you unlock split screen and quick race, you'll be good to go for offline mode.
@Sunsy Indeed. Luckily, some games still keep it to a minimum, or at least not as mandatory, and so far, this game seems to be one of them.
I bought the €20 starter pack and got stuck in. Loving the racing, it's great fun, but I hit the 'refuel' button not knowing what it was and my car was disabled for over an hour. I didn't have any other B cars to race with so I literally could not continue the championship until my B
Car was refueled. Didn't have any option to buy a B car either, bizarre situation for a game I 'paid' for. But I'm still gonna keep playing as its a lot of fun.
@nmanifold For future reference: once you have two or more cars, try and gain credits to upgrade them all, but in general, only use two of them to race with. And get more credits and coins by re-doing races and challenges.
I've already won complete refuels for all my three cars in at least five or six races, so that's one way to circumvent that particular problem.
Another method is to use the blue credits to instantly buy refuels. This doesn't always work, though. I haven't played enough of it yet to find out the how and why for that particular mechanic, but there's always been some kind of race I was able to participate in so far, so you should be able to do the same as well.
Provided of course, you always come in at third place at least, otherwise you'll win very little credits and coins...
@ThanosReXXX Which is a good thing. When it comes to F2P, I could see myself making a one time purchase of an in-game store item, rather than sinking hundreds into it. I have to really like the game in order to do that. Otherwise, I usually play F2P games for free.
Will add, the quick race mode feels like its own game. Completing challenges there unlock tracks in that mode only, and can be played offline. I like this mode so far. Plus the fueling element of career is not present in this mode, it could be played as much times as you want without waiting for a car to fuel up.
@Sunsy I'll try that later, then. Right now, I'm quite busy and entertained playing the career mode.
Played for half an hour yesterday night and the races seemed too short; like 10-15 seconds. Are the races longer later on?
Liked it a lot. Decided to support the devs with 2 bucks for a porsche. I think it is great!
I'm loving it and I don't usually bother with free to play games.Very cool 'Burnout' feel to it.
Played for about 6 hours (8% completion) now hitting a wall where I have to start grinding for coins to upgrade stuff. The coin reward has dropped off as the upgrade cost has went up. Theres plenty to do with challenge modes and online racing. The refuel issue isn't really one doing career as your reputation goes up it refuels all your Cars. Again depending on how you are playing the game gives out tokens. I'm up to about 400(these are the tokens you can buy with real money or by completing daily challenges) tokens, these too can be used to refuel your car. The cars also automatically refuel at the end of the day or rather when you load the game up next day.
Had fun with it, but I'm not likely to play much more.
The gameplay is really fantastic. It reminds me of a more refined Burnout, however the layout on the game screen with all the different currency types really sucks to wrap your head around.
But we need always internet connection to play this? 🤔
@ThanosReXXX Cheers for the advice, I'll try this. It's all a bit over-whelming starting off, I'm learning as I go. I assume you have 2 Cars in category B? the problem was in the paid starter pack they only give you 1 category B car, that's why I was caught unawareness. Can i ask what was your quickest way of getting your 2nd car? Gonna get back into it later, strangely I'm enjoying the level-up systems, coins, etc...
The only thing I found that I hate in this game so far is the touch controls. You are able to use the touch controls in ranked matches.
@San_D Yes, they are. Longer races will come soon enough, if you keep playing.
@nmanifold I've got three cars, from the D category: the blue Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, the striped BMW Z4 (which I repainted), and the yellow Chevrolet Camaro LT, so I alternate between the three and have never yet run into the out of fuel problem, and if I had to refill, I just spent some blue tokens to skip refueling.
Enjoyed it for an hour before I deleted it. I’m not the audience for free to play mobile games whatever platform they’re released on though.
Gonna add that it has cop chases! Just saw some 1vs1 race with cops to mess with you, also a 'hunted' event where it's just you against lots of cops
It's one of the best arcade racing games on the Switch, too bad people are scared off with the free to play stuff, though the offline quick race / challenge mode is fine (but only the online events give you cars I think)
@ThanosReXXX Cool, will continue playing then.
But my question is where are the Alfa Romeos? If they're not in it I'm not playing it.
@San_D yes, like after you complete say your first three career seasons/tournaments, then you will see races that go as far as 90 miles. These are longer yet tougher to stay on top if you don't have a fast enough car.
One thing that grinds my gears in this version is that there are less and less cars and no motorcycle mode like in 8. There were more D, C, and B class cars in 8 and its still getting updated. I hope 9 picks up the pace to keep the audience satisfied.
didn't expect it to be this good
Does anybody know if it is possible to do cross play with friends that have the mobile version of Asphalt 9?
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