Hill Climb Racing is a downloadable 2D driving game that has you as the player navigating an obstacle course in the form of a hilly mountain. The game was originally released on mobile devices back in 2012 but was eventually ported over to the PC later on in its lifespan. In 2016 it received a sequel called Hill Climb Racing 2. In HCR, with each new level that you complete, the overall gameplay loop progressively gets harder and harder, and depending on the setting, mechanics might change around somewhat as well.
How to Download Hill Climb Racing
To download Hill Climb Racing for Windows 10 head over to Microsoft Store. The Android version can be downloaded from Google Play Store and if you fancy playing the title on an iOS device choose Apple App Store. To begin, click on the Download button at the end of the review.
The Game Review
As with many mobile games, there is next to no real story to concern yourself with as the player, and with Hill Climb Racing that appears to be no change in the slightest. Hill Climb Racing has no story in the slightest and your only encouragement to play the game is to complete each level that crops up after the previous one.
With the game being a 2D driving/obstacle course game, the controls are very simple. On the screen, you can press one of two buttons: gas or brake. By holding onto the gas button, your car will begin to drive forwards, making its way to the right of the screen. Whereas the brake will slow the car down.
Since the car is on a hill, there’s bound to be a lot of bumps and jumps and will end up forcing the car into the air, causing it to lean and spin if you’re not too careful. By using brake and gas, you will be able to turn the car left or right when it’s in the air, and if you fail to let the car land back down on the solid ground, you will have to restart the level.
Levels in Hill Climb Racing start off simple and slowly ramp up, progressively getting more difficult and increasing the number of jumps there are in total. Throughout the level, you will find 2 different collectibles: coins and gas canisters.
Coins come in varying values and once you’ve collected enough, you’ll be able to upgrade your car in certain areas, making it faster, more fuel efficient, and easier to control overall. The gas canisters, however, will refuel your gas gauge, a gauge that progressively goes down with how much gas you use for each level.
Once the gas gauge has completely emptied, the car will proceed to roll down the rest of the hill, until it can move no longer without the use of gas. As you get further into the game, the amount of fuel you have won’t get you nearly as far as it once did, so that’s where the player is going to need to make some upgrades.
When it comes to the comparisons, Hill Climb Racing is clearly inspired by games like the Trials series and some of the older browser-based driving/obstacle games that have you avoiding the obstacles and getting to the end of the level without making any mistakes.
For anyone that’s looking for a short and sweet fix for their mobile devices, Hill Climb Racing is an easy-to-learn title that hours of entertainment can be derived from it – just maybe not all at once, as you might end up burning yourself out a little bit.
