Five mobile racers worth your drive time

Mobile racing games live or die on how fast they feel, and most of them get that wrong. Here are the ones that got it right for us this year.

Nitro Canyon Rush tops our list for its drift system — it's forgiving enough to feel great and precise enough to master. The boost loop had us replaying tracks just to shave a second off.

We also keep going back to games with tilt controls, though they're not for everyone. If you play standing on a train, stick to tap steering. Our rule of thumb: test the controls in the first race before judging anything else.

Battery is the hidden enemy of mobile racing. Bright tracks and fast framerates eat your charge, so we flag any game that runs cool and lasts. It's a boring point that nobody mentions until their phone dies at level four.