Torque Drift

Popular mobile drift racing game goes on desktop

Torque Drift is a racing video game that lets you aim to be the Drift King. Developed by Grease Monkey Games, this is the PC port of the highly-popular mobile version. However, unlike the original, this isn’t free-to-play—though fortunately, it still retained its online multiplayer events. The PC version even installed all updates in the mobile version from the very start, so players won’t have to wait for them.

Still mostly the same

Torque Drift is one of the top mobile drift racing games around, popular mostly due to its expansive content and realistic gameplay on drifting. As a free multiplayer racing game, it also offered other features that got players hooked. In this PC port, nothing major has changed much. You still get to see the game’s real drifting physics and you can build your car, customize it, compete world-wide, and earn sponsors.

The game features real professional drifting teams, branded sponsors, and car parts that you can view and customize your ride with. The models for the cars and car parts themselves are gorgeous, especially for the DLC vehicles and the interior view. However, the race tracks’ environments look blurry. Mostly everything is realistic, like the smoke effects and how the track obstacles can be damaged. However, the engine sound effects are inaccurate.

You have four modes available: Freestyle, Events, Local Play, and Streaming. You can choose which stages you’d like to enter on the world map. However, some of them require you to be at a certain level. When competing on PvP, you only face off against the highest record of another player and not an actual live opponent, so there’s no need to worry about your unstable internet connection. Unfortunately, the user interface is unintuitive.

Should’ve been an improvement

Gameplay-wise, Torque Drift on PC is still great. The realistic physics and driving techniques actually affect your car, which is where a compatible controller helps. This needs better car sound design to help you recognize gear shifts, though. The main menu and user interface aren’t great, either, and there’s no tutorial to properly introduce new players to drift racing. This version could use some more fixing on issues that the mobile one similarly had.