Driving games are coming sharp and fast to the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad but many are very similar, mimicking each other in the basic idea of first past the line wins. So Drift Mania Championship is a nice refreshing change to the racing genre you would think?

The main idea of the game is as you would imagine based on the principle of drifting a car around a track. Doing so allows you to rack up points which unlock new vehicles so you can thrash the same track again but with an even higher score due to the cars better abilities in handling and performance. Points can be earned super fast by performing complex drifts such as short fast drifts and drifting for a long period of time without stopping.

The controls are interesting on this one. I don’t hate them but I don’t like them either. To accelerate you have a bar on the right hand side of the screen, by moving your finger up and down it, which reflects the speed increases and decreases. This I like and it works really well but the steering is the area that just doesn’t work for me. Going around corners works fine and is pretty much perfect but on straights it’s like the walls have magnets in them attracting me in. And once your against that wall it’s near impossible to get off it.

The graphics are decent. The ground is very realistic as the car moves along, also looking good is the scenery such as buildings and trees. But the car itself is ugly and horridly. It’s blocky and feels like someone has cut it out and pasted it into the screen. This really needs to be sorted out, the cars visuals should be top notch with it being a car themed game and all.

The sound of the engine is good and very realistic and the drifting is excellent but the soundtrack just get’s in the way and I disabled it in the end. I think a better choice of music would have increased the experience greatly.

Overall Drift mania Championship is actually quite fun when it works but there are way to many things wrong to recommend. It just feels as if it wasn’t put together quite right in the end with just three tracks and three cars. Get Need For Speed Shift or 2XL Trophylite Rally instead.