Hill Climb Racing 2 is an Astonishingly Good Mobile Game

Navigating the rocky waters of free-to-play mobile gaming takes firmness, to be sure. At worst, you’ll be inclined to a never-ending parade of unskippable ads and unplanned gameplay.

At best, you’ll find an experience that eats up a disgraceful number of hours and handles to draw you back in day after day. For racing games, that’s what I’ve discovered in “Hill Climb Racing 2.”

A mountainous development in Hill Climb Racing 2

The primary “Hill Climb Racing” was an easy affair: ride as far as you can without running out of fuel or tossing over onto your head. The beyond you go, the more money you generate, and the more money you produce, the further you can upgrade your vehicle of choice.

The controls, too, are easy. All you have to do is press down on the right side of the screen to go faster — or pitch forward if you’re in the air — and press the left to handbrake or pitch back.

“Hill Climb Racing 2” considers that perception and expands on it in several modes. To start, everything that made up the primary game is now just one of four modes in the sequel, now known as “Adventure.”

There’s also a viable mode where you race against other players across the world, one where you can join a team to together cover as many kilometers as possible within a week to earn awards, and particular events that let you undertake courses everywhere from a countrified countryside to the moon.

The vehicles of Hill Climb Racing 2

While the game’s style is cartoony and its drivers are caricatures, there’s an astonishing amount of depth to its vehicle choice and customization. You’ll begin the game with the default car from the original game, which is properly dubbed the Hill Climber.

However, depending on how much money you accumulate, you’ll be able to release models ranging from the comparatively practical Dune Buggy to a series of violently floppy bikes to high-powered speedsters like the Supercar.

If that’s not enough, each of “Hill Climb Racing 2’s” accessible vehicles feature four upgrade categories such as engine power, tire grip, distribution of torque, and more, depending on the model’s proposed purpose. Each one has 20 separate levels, which implies that every vehicle can be upgraded a total of 100 times.

“Hill Climb Racing 2” isn’t excused from stereotypical free-to-play issues — there are still inducements to spend real-world currency, irregular ad breaks, and the like.

The difference for me is that it gives you an abundance of opportunities to grow without forking over your hard-earned cash while still being authentically fun.