I’ve been saying this for years, Even when I originally created this site in 2010 as truly a WordPress experiment (mlata6.wordpress.com at the time before I made it premium and added custom domains). I was so excited by the prospect of iPad gaming then that I remember writing feature editorials for Appmodo and other sites showing it can truly surpass portable gaming and compete with gaming consoles.
I saw that it offered such a unique experience with even its original accelerometer fir tilt controls the original iPad included (primitive tablet compared to what we have available today with the latest models) and saw that even the touch interface can be advantegous for certsin genres of games: RPG, RTS, Puzzle, Match-Three, Tactical or TBS, and more.
What I realized at the time was that the iPad could be the perfect portable PC game player rwther than really compete with other handheld devices — such as Sony’s PSP and Vits or Nintendo’s DS/3DS line — or even consoles intent on having gamers use controllers, racing wheels or peripherals connected to a large HDTV. I saw genres popular on PC — such as Panzer General, Starcraft, Commandos — that would transfer to the iPad well and allow gamers to have that experience in a mobile setting or even being able to play standing up rather than couched over a PC monitor and there are clear advantage to this, not in the least comfort.
However, racing was one genre where I had my doubts. Even though the accelerometer could work well for tilt controls if done right and the user doesn’t have to steer to heavily left or right with their bodies, and it is super responsive of an experience (1-1 tilt in-game response time) I wondered how the break, acceleration and manual shift could be i plemented. I also never saw co pelling software to showcase the iPad as a great racing-game device. That is until now.
As many of you may have heard, the 2015 PC version — including DLC — of Grid Autosport has hit the iOS App Store and is compativle with this year’s iPad model, the pro line and requires iOS 11 as well as a steep download of 8GB. The game is currently priced at $9.99 on the U.S. App Store and you can grab it here.
This is truly a steal when comparing its price on PC and consoles, especially when it launched. It shows how iOS is a great platform not just due to the sheer variety of games we have, but for the budget gamer as well. The Steam version for PC for instance costs $39.99 right now and this shows what sort of deal you are getting.
I recently read the game’s review on Touch Arcade calling it easily the best racer on the App Store. It mentions just the sheer variety of cars and courses (100 each or so), difficulty modes, control configurations and even tuning you can do in-game.
According to Touch Arcade’s review, “GRID Autosport is a fully premium experience with content that will take you forever to complete, a ton of ways to play, fantastic visuals, and highly customizable controls and difficulty level that will suit every player out there. Feral Interactive has really brought a console-quality game to iOS.”
The customer reviews on the App Store echo this sentiment:
So there you have it. Finally a true racer has hit the iPad and we can appreciate the potential of the platform for real games. Hopefully, more devlopers will follow suit in bringing last-gen or possibly current-gen and PC titles over without any features missing. The big question I have is when is Skyrim or one of the titles in the Elder Scrolls universe coming? That is something else I have been waiting for and see potential in: an epic RPG you can get lost in, but played from the first-person view (yes I know we have Legend of Grimrock, but I want a true engrossing game, not just an indy dungeon crawler, albeit a great one at that so keep the strong indy titles coming as well.)
Maciej Duraj 
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