Wrong!
"I wanna pay once and get all the tracks, all the cars!"
People who (apparently) want to spend money once and get the "whole game" are missing the point of the game itself. They miss the concept of "career mode" challenges and progression. Or they get it but can't play racing SIMs and then should just stay away from this.
First, let's debunk this "you have to buy stuff all the time" crap:
- The cars:
There are 4 cars you have to buy with Gold:
I'm at 25% completion of the game, own the McLaren, the Porsche and have 148 Gold.
I earned 432 Gold so far, so this means I have about 432x3 out there to win. That's 1296 total. To add to my current 148 = 1444. Considering I want all cars, and I'm missing 2 that can only be bought with 400 and 800 Gold respectively, that's a total 1200, I'm pretty confident I'll get there before 90% completion with over 200 Gold to "waste" in the process. That for me, is a goal. A challenge and an objective, but achievable. A game.
- The rest
I accidentally used gold a couple of times on repairs, and bought some max upgrades and paints... But they are not mandatory. You can go through the whole game without spending one Gold in any of that. Only some car's top level upgrades need Gold (and you can win without them), repairs only cost "money" and time (wait, don't spend gold...) and paint jobs?
And all the rest can be bought with virtual "money".
Wanna get everything just by playing along and unlocking stuff? Go play AngryBirds.
Honestly, I see myself ending up buying all cars and completing every challenge and race. It's just a matter of persistence, of playing and winning. Again, and again. And that is not a problem when you can even repeat the same events just to beat your friends. Waiting for it (repairs, upgrades, delivery) the build up, actually makes you wanna play even more. You will not get bored with playing too long, that's for sure.
Don't want to spend so many hours in a driving game? DON'T. If it's not for you, then go play Plants vs Zombies and STFU already.
In conclusion:
The game is simply great. Game play, graphics, progression, car detail, track modelling, input method.
If anything, this added "bad" Gold buying scheme is just a paid cheat enabler! People are throwing money at the game to get ahead. Faster progression, better cars, upgrades. But, if you wanna cheat, you gotta pay. Sounds fair to me actually...
Better even, if this is the way EA/Firemonkeys found to fund their game and thus make it free to get (and play) for hardcore SIM gamers, then it's more than fair, I'm totally happy with it!
I've been playing with friends and enjoying the hell out of it. All for free. And we're pretty sure we won't "need to buy stuff" to get ahead.
Want real "faults"? Maybe it could have more tracks (maybe it will...), and have a proper soundtrack. Cloud sync could work too, that would be helpful. These are real faults. Not the freemium model.
I never played against/with so many people ever in a mobile game. And I think we will continue to do so for quite a while apparently. Without spending a cent. This is a big WIN.
Wanna get a quick cheap thrill, and "eat" the whole thing in two goes? Buy a fucking twix.
Unless you're one of those "experts", reviewers, bloggers, journos etc who "played for 20m and..." hated it. You sirs, can eat shit.
