The Asphalt series has long given its players some options when it came to how to control their cars. Typically, those options were defined by the two most common control methods found in mobile racing games: tilt steering, meaning actually …
The Asphalt series has long given its players some options when it came to how to control their cars. Typically, those options were defined by the two most common control methods found in mobile racing games: tilt steering, meaning actually turning the screen of one’s phone or tablet to steer the car, or tap, using on-screen arrows to tap and steer. Asphalt 9: Legends adds a brand new wrinkle with a third control scheme that’s called Touchdrive.
Put simply, Touchdrive is a way to allow gamers to play Asphalt 9 with just one hand, as well as giving beginners a chance to ease into the racing action if they don’t have a lot of experience with Asphalt titles or racing games in general. It accomplishes all of that by taking care of two very important parts of driving automatically. One is accelerating, which is true for all three Asphalt 9 control schemes. Your car always accelerates as fast as it can whenever it can without you pressing anything.
But Touchdrive also steers the car, within limits that we’ll get to in just a second. All you need to do with Touchdrive activated is swipe on the screen to steer toward different upcoming track features that are indicated by icons at the top of the screen. In other words, swiping left will steer you toward whatever is in the icon on the left, swiping right steers you toward that instead. There can be as few as two icons at one time or as many as four (though that’s rare), but the swiping moves from one to the other regardless.
Among the things that can appear in those icons are nitro bottles, ramps, upcoming curves in the road or symbols for places to take shortcuts — often through buildings or other obstructions, because this is Asphalt after all. What’s important to keep in mind is that Touchdrive is not infallible, as your timing is still key. Swipe toward a ramp too late and you may not rotate a barrel roll or stick the landing off a straight jump.
So Touchdrive isn’t a complete autodrive, but it can make your life easier.But while it’s there for you to use, that doesn’t mean that you necessarily should under all circumstances.
While the choice of control schemes comes down mainly to a matter of personal preference, there’s no question that Touchdrive shines under certain conditions. If your car vastly outranks the minimum stats for a particular race, Touchdrive can help you pass that race with a minimum off effort. If there are multiple flags up for grabs for things like drifting time or a number of stunts, that’s even better, because you can let Touchdrive do the heavy lifting while you man the buttons.
On the flip side, Asphalt 9 multiplayer probably isn’t the best time to use Touchdrive. Really skilled human opponents are going to be using tilt or touch to steer more precisely, and they will have an edge on you because of that. As well, if you encounter My Career mode races where you simply can’t level up any vehicles to meet the minimum stats, you’re going to want the extra control that tilt or tap give you.
If you take nothing else out of this article, it should be this: Touchdrive is a valuable tool in Asphalt 9, but not a complete crutch. be sure to check out our other Asphalt 9: Legends guides, including how to earn free credits and Tokens and our complete car list.
