Providing a lighter experience than that certain other motorsport management game comes Race Team Manager, a title that’s a little grind heavy and requires some patience, but is also pretty enjoyable.
Your time is spent hiring and firing drivers to hand your beloved vehicles over to, as well as keeping mechanics and sponsors happy so that you make plenty of money and achieve success. It’s pretty menu heavy, with brief moments of more interactive gameplay, but it’s oddly compelling, too.
Each race is mostly text-based, with every lap explained in the space of a couple of lines. At certain key moments, you get involved and the action changes to a more typical racing game moment. Each key moment requires some speedy reactions. For instance, when trying to slipstream past the opposition, you have to swipe a finger to the side at just the right moment in order to get past. You sometimes have to dodge a crash by drawing a line to safely clear the obstacles. Overtaking is a matter of tilting your iOS device to steer, and unfortunately is a bit oversensitive. The interactive side of thing looks pretty good, adding to the appeal and helping you overcome those fairly dull menus.
There is a fly in the ointment, though. Race Team Manager likes to use timers to slow you down. You can only race so many times before waiting for the energy meter to recharge. Waiting for upgrades is soon a common event as well. Every now and then there are tempting offers too, such as encouraging you to pay a few bucks to unlock a particularly great car. It’s not a huge issue as you can still progress through grinding, but it’s something to be aware of.
Fortunately, for the most part, Race Team Manager is good and simple fun. Its menu heavy structure won’t appeal to adrenaline junkies, but those who just want to dive in every now and then, and feel as if they’re achieving something, will enjoy this breezy and undemanding title.