Horizon Chase 2

While this racing sequel adds more modes, and a deeper focus on online play, it's far from perfect. Horizon Chase 2 will satisfy some racing fans willing to overlook its flaws. Younger or novice gamers will notice there's no tutorial -- instead, you choose one of the available modes and learn how to control your vehicle in a race. There are some odd tips that pop up, though, such as when you drift around a corner or activate nitro. The game also slows down occasionally, hurting the overall suspension of disbelief, or worse, negatively impacting your positioning in a tight online race. Another issue is finding people to play online. While there are some real players, a handful of cars were driven by 'bots.

But Horizon Chase 2 is really fun, though, whether it's visiting a new country in the World Tour mode (such as Brazil, Thailand, the U.S. or Italy), the Playground mode (which offers new challenges every couple of days) or Tournaments mode, which challenges drivers to take part in modified races from the World Tour mode. Some of the Rewards tabs didn't seem to work (and not greyed out), which could be a bug, but that didn't happen that often. Both World Tour and Tournaments modes can be played alone or in groups of up to four players. But the Playground mode requires data collection, so you need to accept this or only enjoy World Tour and Tournaments as a single-player experience. The tracks are fun, laid out well, and are nice to look at, and the cars handle responsively as an arcade game. Hitting nitro adds "speed lines" on the screen to imply fast speeds, but it doesn't seem like you're actually driving much faster. If you already have an Apple Arcade subscription and like racing games, you have nothing to lose by downloading this title. but don't expect Horizon Chase 2 to keep you engaged more than, say, a weekend.