Asphalt Overdrive is a 2014 game developed and published by Gameloft. It is the eleventh game in the Asphalt series, along with being the series' first spinoff. The game was officially retired in February 2015 and servers for the game were shut down by May 2020.
Overview[]
As an "endless runner" game, the player only has to focus on shifting lanes by swiping left or right; acceleration is done automatically by the game. In each race, the player has to achieve an objective and their score is rated out of 3 Stars . 1 star is awarded for completing the race while 2 more are awarded for beating certain score targets. When enough stars are earned in a turf, the antagonist of that turf challenges the player to a race. When the boss has been beaten, the next turf is unlocked and the same boss can be challenged again to win their car.
Gameplay[]
Asphalt Overdrive has 6 game modes:
- Getaway: The player has to drive a certain distance while keeping ahead of an opponent.
- Stunt Run: A timed run where a certain number of jump stunts have to be performed.
- Destruction: A timed run where a certain number of takedowns have to be performed.
- Restriction: The same as a Getaway, Stunt Run, or Destruction but the player is restricted to a single vehicle.
- Joyride: The player has to drive as far as they can while a clock runs out.
- Daily Test Drive: The same as a Joyride but the player is given a random car and only available once per day after 0:00 UTC. The vehicle is either a "loaner car" at basic level or, if the player owns the vehicle, at the current car power.
In addition to changing lanes, directional swiping is used to perform stunts on ramps. Swiping either left or right on a regular ramp performs a Twister while swiping upwards performs a Bird Flight. Barrel Roll ramps require either a left or right swipe for a Barrel Roll while a large ramp requires an upward swipe for a 360°.
During Joyrides and Getaways, a section of track can appear that forces the player to move to the middle lane to perform either a Grind or a Two Wheel. The player has to tilt their device to keep a needle in a center green zone or adjacent yellow zones. Tilting too far to either side will put the needle in the far red zone and end the stunt.
In certain tunnel sections, being in the right-most lane and swiping right will perform a Loop Twister where the car does a loop de loop of the tunnel's arch.
Drifting is present in the game but also done automatically during certain tunnel segments; the player only has to change lanes to avoid obstacles.
At the start of each race, a quick-time-event is prompted and will give a bonus that benefits the game mode.
Pick-ups[]
In-game description: "Pick-ups are objects you can collect during missions that will help your progress in a run or later in the game. These can be Bills, Gold, extra time or small or big nitro charges. [1]
- Cash – This gives a cash bonus of 1,000 and appears randomly at set points on each track.
- Nitro – This adds a specific amount of nitro to the tank. Upgrading a vehicle's nitro increases the amount of nitro obtained from the pick-up. Nitro pick-ups can appear either as blue or pink bottles. Blue bottles always appear at set points on each track but give less nitro than pink bottles that appear randomly at set points.
- Gold – This gives a gold bonus of 1 and appears randomly at set points on each track.
- Time extension – This is only used for the Joyride mode and adds more time to the clock.
Vehicles[]
Story mode[]
Instead of having a career mode, Asphalt Overdrive features a story mode, with a small plot going on between each episode.
- Episode 1: New Kid in Town
- Episode 2: Stern Warning
- Episode 3: Erudite Enemy
- Episode 4: Hot and Shiny
- Episode 5: The Big Score
Characters[]
Supporting[]
- Unnamed woman - the sister and companion of the player, helps in some situations and informs about tuning of the car characteristics. In first turf, if the energy gauge is empty for the first time, she helps with refill it for free. She also comments the current race events (Quotes: "Oops!", "C'mon get us outta here!" etc.)
- Boss X - unknown person that appears at fifth turf. Gives 30 when Frank Milius (see "Antagonists") is beaten.
Antagonists[]
- Ricky Chang (episode 1, DeLorean DMC-12)
- Debbie Lords (episode 2, Ford Shelby GT500)
- Johnny Bateman (episode 3, Ferrari Testarossa)
- Kelly Rodriguez (episode 4, Lamborghini Countach)
- Frank Milius (episode 5, Ferrari FXX) - the boss of the gang who stole the player's Ferrari 308 GTS in the introduction.
Obstacles[]
In addition to static debris that blocks off a lane, traffic serves as obstacles the player should avoid and can appear both as moving and stationary objects.
- Normal traffic: Normal vehicles that can have a takedown or near-miss performed with it. When hit from the rear, the traffic car slows down the player's vehicle and ends a combo. Invincible is not turned on upon hitting these vehicles.
- Heavy vehicles: Slow-moving busses or cargo trucks that are immune to takedowns but can give a near-miss. Attempting a takedown will only result in the player's vehicle moving back into the previous lane and colliding from the rear causes a wreck. Invincible is turned on upon impact with these vehicles.
- Scripted variants of cargo trucks can appear where the cargo is dropped onto the road and the truck crashes. This version will have 2 lanes blocked off twice.
- Police trucks can appear during certain missions as a scripted event and are treated as a heavy vehicle.
- Police cars and taxis: Normal vehicles that drive erratically and frequently change lanes.
- Police barricades: Scripted vehicles that block a lane and attempt to cause a wreck.
- Police pursuit & boss cars: These appear during a Getaway or boss mission. If they catch up to the player, the race is failed.
Trivia[]
- The underlined neon-style font of the "Overdrive" subtitle and the comic style rendering of game characters are very similar to the GTA Vice City and GTA Vice City Stories style.
- The caption of the app icon upon installing reads "Asphalt O". This abbreviation reappears in-game as the default license plate number and also in the top bar of the license plate on the customization screen.
- A police version of the Ford Mustang Boss 302 is used in Turf 3 and 4 while the Lamborghini Countach is used for Turf 5.
- Races are done both during day and night, although the latter only appears when Turf 3 is reached.
- The characters of the game were designed by André Mealha.[2] During production, the pre-release characters had different names, and some of them were visually different.
- The player's sister (working name: "The Girl") had a more feminine appearance with broader hips and a leather jacket instead of a baseball jacket.
- Ricky Chang (working name: "Randy") was holding a crowbar.
- Debbie Lords was originally named "Debra". Gameloft later rotated the image a bit to the left, made her skin more tanned, changed the color of her dress from red to yellow and removed a revealing bikini-like detail at the upper part of the dress.
- Kelly Rodriguez (working name: "Virginia") appears in two versions which were both published: version A (mainly used for promo images) with a scarf covering her neckline and a long dress, and version B (used in-game) with uncovered neckline, a short dress and pantyhose/stockings.
- Johnny Bateman ("Patrick") and Frank Milius ("Bruce Stoneback") were taken over unchanged.
- An additional character named "The Mechanic" was not used in the final game.
- In the original release (version 1.0.0), Debbie Lords was an undercover police officer.[3]
References[]
- ↑ Options | Help | p. 13: Pick-ups.
- ↑ Andre Mealha. ArtStation. Retrieved on 2020-10-02.
- ↑ [1]