![]() It just switches between formats without complaints, and plays. It’s to the developer’s considerable credit, however, that switching between integrated and external displays is handled with true grace: the game doesn’t crash or complain when the Adapter is plugged in or pulled out. Though there would be no reason to mirror the 3-D content on the iPad 2, Firemint’s tiny control icons for camera switching, pausing, braking, and the like could really stand to gain additional prominence-and in some cases, just obviousness-on the iPad 2’s screen while in this mode. When the iPad 2 is connected to an HDTV, the iPad’s screen contains only a very plain 2-D map and statistical information, while all of the 3-D graphics are offloaded onto the external display. ![]() Just as when the game is played on the iPad 2’s own screen, the tablet’s gyroscope and accelerometer controls make for a surprisingly outstanding steering wheel, though one that is unnecessarily large and not particularly benefitted yet by the integrated touchscreen. Will most gamers really care to use the TV-out feature? Well, that’s a good question. Considering that the addition of this feature was essentially “free,” offset only by the need to buy Apple’s accessory and possibly a spare HDMI cable, it’s pretty impressive the iPad 2 is in the early stages of becoming a rival to standalone game consoles, albeit a comparatively expensive one. Between the licensed car models and the detailed race tracks, Real Racing 2 HD looks better on an HDTV than the PlayStation 2’s Gran Turismo titles-with no major frame rate problems even when 16 cars are on screen at once, including only slightly less than perfectly smooth animations taking place in the background objects-while texture and polygon levels fall short only of what is now possible on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in the best developers’ hands. We tested Real Racing 2 HD on both 1080p- and 720p-maximum screens, and it works properly on both types of HDTVs, putting out images that are even clearer on a pixel level than what the iPad 2’s own 1024×768 display is capable of performing. Today, Real Racing 2 HD was upgraded to version 1.10, and the iPad 2 code is even better: in addition to looking smooth and beautiful on the iPad 2’s own screen, the game now supports up to 1080p video output to a TV screen when used with Apple’s Digital AV Adapter accessory. Truthfully, Real Racing 2 HD on the iPad 2 was the first version of this game that moved as smoothly as players should have expected on any iOS device-as implausible as it is, it felt as if Firemint had been developing Real Racing 2 all along for a device with the iPad 2’s capabilities, and never quite figured out how to optimize it perfectly for everything else. ![]() ![]() On the iPad 2, it included new anti-aliasing effects, plus a considerably smoother frame rate. On the original iPad, Real Racing 2 HD suffered from repeated low memory crashes and a certain frame rate sluggishness when starting new races, but otherwise looked like an even cleaner, bolder version of the iPhone and iPod touch release. Launched for the iPad and iPad 2 on the day of the iPad 2’s release, the original 1.0 version of Real Racing 2 HD provided an early-though clearly underoptimized-glimpse at the major differences between the new and old iPad graphics hardware. Real Racing 2 HD is a somewhat different story. Firemint addressed the bugs and improved performance somewhat in post-release updates, but Real Racing 2 is pretty much the same game it was last December, and still designed solely for Apple’s 3.5”-screened devices-without proper iPad support. Seemingly rushed out to appeal to last-minute Christmas shoppers, the iPhone and iPod touch version of Real Racing 2 unfortunately exhibited noticeable frame rate issues with 16 cars on the track at the same time, used a rigid career mode structure to lock most of its content away, and included a career-crushing bug that could lose all of your progress after a failed Game Center login, all issues discussed in our prior review.
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