Twelve years ago I was helping out Gameloft by testing out Asphalt 6. I just started my career as a Designer and I was doing some QA work until they found a project to throw me on (it ended up being NOVA 3). Asphalt 6 for me was the pinnacle of Mobile Racing, back when the game was a Premium Release. Why am I mentioning this in a Gear.Club Stradale review? Because for a few hours, I thought that Gear.Club Stradale would power drift pass Asphalt 6 as my favourite “Premium” Mobile Racing Game. ⚠️Spoiler Warning:⚠️ It didn’t.
Is Gear.Club Stradale a good mobile racing game?
Gear.Club Stradale is a really decent racing game and a great addition to the Apple Arcade subscription. Paired with a controller it’s one of the best racing offerings available to iOS users (second only to GRID™ Autosport) and it fits the racing bill really well. It has decent graphics, decent controls and decent gameplay but it falls short of spectacular in all regards. We’re giving it 3.5/5🌟.
In this article we’re going to talk about Gear.Club Stradale and review it as a Apple Arcade release. I’m going to talk about the game’s club system, control, AI behaviour, progression and of course it’s aesthetics and graphics. And the almost-but-not-quite amazing soundtrack. By the end of the article you’ll have a pretty good idea if you should download Gear.Club Stradale.
Tuscany Roads, Take Me Home
I started off Gear.Club Stradale racing for a few good minutes to reach my amazing “club” villa. The track objective was just that, “Reach The Villa”. I’m not going to lie when I say that I went in blind and did not read or know anything about Gear.Club. Nothing at all, so for a few minutes before I reached the Villa, I actually had my hopes up that the game features Open World driving around Tuscany.
Those first few minutes of the game with the PS4 DualShock controller in hand? It felt like I was playing the original Need For Speed: Most Wanted. It’s been a long time since I was excited for a racing game, a really long time. I reached the villa and I went through the onboarding process.
Made a Club, bought the 2nd car option (Alfa Romeo 4C), mindlessly pressed “X” to continue through the mechanic/car upgrade tutorial and I was off to the races.
I went straight for the Racing Events and picked the easy ones so I can get accustomed to a less “arcady” feeling against other drivers. And this is where the problems that I have with the game started…
There are 3 main areas where the game irk’s me to no end and they also happen to be the 3 most important areas for a game:
- The Gameplay itself and the way the cars controls
- The Social Features and Club system
- The Game’s Graphics and General Aesthetics
And when I say the irk me they really do. The game isn’t bad in any of the 3 mentioned areas however it’s not as good as it wants itself to be. The best way I can describe the situation is through a weird comparison. Imagine you just hurt your wrist in an accident. You didn’t break it, it’s not swollen but it’s definitely uncomfortable. This is what I mean by irk. A lot of the game’s main features are just that – uncomfortable. Let’s see why.
Gameplay and Control
I picked up the game while browsing the Apple Arcade Section. I was actually looking for some graphically impressive games that would sip a lot of juice from my iPhone 12’s battery. I was reviewing the MagSafe Battery Pack at the time and I wanted to see if the pack can keep up with demanding games (⚠️spoiler warning:⚠️it didn’t and I do not recommend it for gaming).
I downloaded Gear.Club Stradale from the Apple Arcade section of the App Store, installed it to my iPhone 12 Mini and I took it for a spin. One of the first things I noticed is that the game supports Gyroscope controls for steering and I instantly smiled ear to ear.
When I was working on Asphalt 6 @ Gameloft all those years ago I fell in love with using Motion Controls. Gameloft was running the Audi R3 competition (you could win an Audi at a special version of Asphalt 6) and I would constantly score and be in the number 1 spot for that competition by only playing with motion controls (though I was not eligible to win being an employee and all that).
Here’s the thing – the game has motion control and I can steer by turning my phone. However steering with the phone in this game is a one ticket to bouncy town. Steer just a bit and you won’t take the curve. Steer just a bit more and you’ll do a 90′ turn, hit the fence and bounce right back into the other one.
I played with the sensitivity constantly and I just couldn’t get the motion controls to feel right and trust me when I say – I tried.
So I moved over to tap on the Left or Right side of the screen to turn the car. Things went a bit better but that feeling of the car suddenly doing a 90′ turn straight into the barriers? It still happened. I did my tests for the battery review and removed the game. The controls just weren’t there for me.
It wasn’t until about a week later that I decided to install it on my 11″ M1 iPad Pro in order to give the game another shoot. And this time I had my trusty DualShock 4 with me. All those issues I mentioned with Touchscreen or Motion Controls? Gone. The game played flawlessly.
I went from always ending up last and not being able to win a single Race or Time Trial to constantly ending up in 1st place. Yay I’m such a great driver it seems.
however
The AI Feels extremely stiff
Never in my entire life as a gamer have I meet a more lifeless-feeling driving AI. As a game developer never have I programmed such a stiff AI in my life. And I worked on quite a few racing games, even failed to launch my own a few years back. I’m mentioning this because it once again irks me.
I can’t even complain about the AI’s rubber banding because it feels like there’s none. It just follows its trajectory and waypoints exactly as it was designed to. If I’m behind it, it won’t slow down to allow me to catch up (which is the way I like it) however if I bounce myself to first place (yes, you can overtake the AI by bouncing between it and the environment) it will not catch up.
I had so many races where I would constantly finish 10-14 seconds in front of the 2nd place drive (generically named “Susan“). And all other drivers behind her at their own fixed intervals. It’s pretty funny to look at the end of the race score card and see a pretty familiar and perfectly spaced out result.
It feels extremely artificial and lacks life and personality.
I can’t put my finger on it but it feels like the developers just used the same values for the AI’s behaviour and just changed the mesh and materials for the cars. Playing with a DS4 controller feels great and once you get rid of the Alfa Romeo (that I thought I was smart for purchasing) the driving experience actually feels really great (the purr of the Nissan GT-R NISMO is amazing).
But after a few time trial races you end up in a race with other AI drivers and you just don’t know if it’s worth it.
Social Features and Club System
This is where the design aspect of the game begins to irk me (are you tired of this word yet?). The club system is forced down your throat. If you don’t agree to share data with the developers they even de-activate it and, of-course, they don’t exactly mention what this entails. Do I just loose multiplayer access like the screenshot saysor do I also forsake access to the villa and progress in the game? Can I still upgrade my car? I don’t know…
Social Features are great if you want to use them. But explain properly how exactly multiplayer and social features intertwine with the game. Can I have a club without going into multiplayer? If I say NO to data collection will I be able to buy cars and progress through the game?
I understood the club system is essential to the game. The first car you buy is “Added to your Club”. Do I loose access to my first car?
The entire club system and social features feel like a pit-stop in search of a problem and it completely killed my desire to try out the multiplayer features & Carta Stradale. I get it, they want players to feel like club managers and have their friends be drivers and loan cars and what not. It’s cool but go the extra mile with it, don’t just tackle it on in a confusing manner.
I have about 20-30 hours in this game SO FAR between my two iOS accounts (work and personal). I refuse to touch multiplayer and invite friends into my club.
Graphics and Aesthetics
I was talking about the game with a developer a share an office with and he saw me playing it. “Hey the game looks great, what game is it? Something new from Gameloft or?”. That kickstarted the conversation and somehow by the end of it we were both in agreement:
The game is basically DriveClub VR when it comes down to the graphical prowess (without any car interiors). I’m not joking. DriveClub VR, for those who never owned a PS4, is a PSVR compatible racing game that is really reminiscent of GC Stradale, especially when it came to the environmental graphics.
The trees, far away windmills, mountains, we’re all low-res so they can fit in the tight memory constraints and FPS budget while the cars (especially the interiors) were extremely detailed. Gear.Club Stradale finds itself in a similar situation where they nailed the cars detailed, specular, reflection map and overall aesthetics. The cars look gorgeous and are a treat. Anything else besides the car? Egh…
If you’re playing on an iPhone? You’ll be hard pressed to notice any low res graphics, especially when going at high speed. But on a bigger screen? You’ll notice all the imperfections. I’m the kind of person that regularly hooks up his iPad Pro to really big screens for both work and entertainment (check out the iPad Desk Setups that I regularly employ).
Is Gear.Club Stradale a good mobile racing game?
Gear.Club Stradale is a really decent racing game and a great addition to the Apple Arcade subscription. Paired with a controller it’s one of the best racing offerings available to iOS users (second only to GRID™ Autosport) and it fits the racing bill really well. It has decent graphics, decent controls and decent gameplay but it falls short of spectacular in all regards. We’re giving it 3.5/5🌟.
I’ve been giving the game a hard time in this review but I don’t hate it. It’s a decent game, even a good one in some aspects, but it’s just not great. It’s like that old saying: I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.
Where To Next?
We have more reviews of both free and premium mobile games, such as Metal Slug Attack or QB Planets! We also have other articles with tidbits and interesting facts, like this article that answers the question “What is the Number 1 mobile eSports Game” sorted by the prize pool.
I write extensively about the mobile gaming industry, their tactics and how greed influences a game’s design, subjects which were brought up in this post.
I believe that you might be interested in more articles on game monetization. So if you want to stick around, you can check out “How Do Free Mobile Games Make money“, “Why Do Mobile Games Have Fake Ads” and “Why Do Mobile Games Have In-App Purchases“.
There’s also a monster post (about 4000 words) that answers the question: “How Hard Is It To Make A Mobile Game“. It goes in depth with actual examples on how Experience, Resources and Financials affect the difficulty of developing and releasing new mobile games!
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