Prestige Update for Real Racing 3 Seeks a Restart for Mistakes

EA/Firemonkeys has just released the 1.2 update for Real Racing 3, the Prestige update. This updates adds a 180 new races, new cars from Bentley and Mercedes-Benz, a new time trial race type, clean racing bonuses, and attempts to right some of the original design features that irritated their core audience. I'm not sure that last point succeeded though.

Firemonkeys got a lot of complaints about Real Racing 3, a game which allowed anyone with enough cash to buy the best cars and upgrade them completely giving them the advantage. This update restricts that activity somewhat requiring players to earn enough trophies to unlock cars for purchase. Effectively requiring a number of wins before a player can buy the best car in any class. This is a great step.

The car maintenance system has also been streamlined. No longer are specific repairs needed, just a regular maintenance that seems to be required more often the worse you drive. Bonuses are also given for clean driving and returning to the game daily. All great moves.

But complexity of the game is amped up considerably by adding a third currency type, "Drive" to the mix. This currency us needed for the time trial race type only and refills over time. Players can, of course, refill immediately buy spilling a few gold coins. This move confounds me greatly as it makes an already complex currency system even more complex by adding an artificial and meaningless energy system to the mix. Sigh.

Take a look below at Real Racing 3 Producer Kynan Woodman walk through this new update.

The core of Real Racing 3 is amazing, the best racing game on any mobile system, hands down. But the free to play elements are just so haphazardly smashed on top and even now all up in the middle. It's almost as if they don't want people to play. The best free to play games are ones that encourage people to play more, not put in meaningless timers and ridiculous complex phony currencies designed to keep people from playing. In this regard, Real Racing 3 continues to be a disappointment.