Grid Autosport

Vrooming great

$9.99 From Feral Interactive, feralinteractive.com Made for iPhone, iPad Needs iOS 11 or later

Grid Autosport is in part exciting because of what it represents. After years of people dismissing iOS gaming, here we have a genuine AAA console racer squeezed into your device.

Whether you’ve experienced the original or not, Grid Autosport is the real deal. You get 100 cars and 100 circuits, a slew of challenges and tournaments, and a huge range of configuration options.

Beginners can get a relatively accessible introduction to simulation racing by using all manner of driving assists, while confident console racing aficionados can disable these aids, delve into a racing season, and abruptly find themselves backwards in a gravel trap, having first gracelessly driven into a wall.

You see, even at its most helpful, Grid Autosport can be demanding. You can’t get away with always pelting along at full speed, as in an Asphalt game. You must instead learn how your car handles, and discern the best places to overtake. But this makes the game all the more rewarding. And as you delve into more complex car and race setups, it feels more like racing and less like barreling along in an indestructible metal missile.

There is the odd niggle — a lack of mirrors (they’re also absent in the console version), longish loading times, and the game not saving progress when you’re part-way through an event. But you won’t find a better premium consolestyle racing experience on iOS.

The bottom line. An achievement that shows the potential of console-style games on iOS.

Touring Cars are good to start with — just make sure you don’t fall down that ravine.