The lost art of the arcade racer

Somewhere along the way, racing games got obsessed with simulation. Tire temperature, suspension tuning, the works. On a phone, most of that is wasted effort, and it crowds out the thing that made racers fun in arcades.

Neon Drift Rally goes the other direction. It's all about the drift — linking slides, keeping your boost alive, flowing through a course like it's one long corner. It's pure feel, and it's a joy.

I spent a surprising amount of time in its time-trial mode, racing my own ghost. That self-competition loop is older than mobile gaming and it still works perfectly.

Sometimes a game doesn't need to simulate anything. It just needs to feel fast and let you slide. This one nails that.