Cast your mind back to Apple's 2013 keynote and you might
remember something called Anki Drive. It was a sort of Scalextric of the
future, which used your iPhone as the controller, and computer AI
instead of slots to keep the cars on the tracks.
It's now out in shops - it's actually been available for some time - but in the run up to Christmas we decided to get our hands on it and see whether this is actually worth putting on your list.
Your entry point to the world of Anki Drive is the starter kit which contains one massive great mat (measuring 260 by 106 metres, so good luck fitting that in your house), two cars, and all the charging cable junk.
You can buy more cars and different tracks separately.
You'll also need the app - it's available for free on the App Store and works with most iPhones and iPads. There's also an Android app but it's not compatible with many devices currently. Plus, you can't do multiplayer between iOS and Android.
Setting up the game is refreshingly straightforward. As long as Bluetooth is turned on, your phone will automatically find and pair with nearby Anki Drive cars. Players can then pick cars they want, and leftover vehicles can become AI racers.
Then it's just a case of setting up a game mode - you've got race, battle, and practice, putting the cars on the starting line, and saying go.
The cars all move forward by themselves, turn into corners, and try to avoid other racers. Your control is quite limited: you can change the speed, but you're never in danger of flying off the side of the track like in scarelectrix so you'll generally go flat out.
You can also steer, sort of. Tilting your phone left or right will move your car from the outside lane to the inside or back again. But while the speed change is practically instant, this is less responsive so it's not good for quickly evading cars or snaking between lanes for better corners.
Then there's the real meat of the game: combat. You can fire weapons and use tractor beams and unleash other items to slow down and temporarily disable rival racers so you can get ahead in the race.
But you're really going to have to use your imagination here. The cars have little LEDs that flash when you're shooting weapons or getting shot, and your phone makes plenty of noises, but the rest is just in your brain.
You can also upgrade your car and equip different weapons and boost your stats, and there's a whole upgrade path to work through. Luckily, you can balance all the cars back down to the lowest shared level before a race so everyone's on a level playing field.
From a technical perspective, Anki Drive is very impressive. The game works pretty well, the cars stay on course most of the time, and the vehicles react quickly to being shot or you dropping their speed. As a robotics demonstration, it's quite the feat.
But I didn't actually find the game itself that much fun in play. As a racer, it's pretty dull and you don't feel like you have all that much control over the outcome of the race. Everyone just goes flat out, veers into the inside lane, and then waits until the laps are over.
It's supposed to be about battles, of course, but that just doesn't quite work.
You just see little lights and noises and then your car stops for a few seconds which can get super annoying. That's a limitation of the system of course, your car can't drop little mines or shoot tiny bullets like in the toy's advert. But as it stands, it just feels flat and repetitive.
There are also technical issues, like having to keep looking down at your phone to see what's happening or make sure your thumbs are over the right buttons, or the pitiful 20 minute battery life of the cars.
You may find there's some fun to be had with Anki Drive, but probably not enough to warrant rolling up and unrolling this massive mat every time you want to play, dealing with the battery life, or paying the whopping £150 price tag for the starter kit.
There could be a good game in this technology, but Anki Drive isn't really it. You might have a laugh on Christmas morning and enjoy figuring out how it all works. But I bet it will sit in your cupboard, collecting dust, in 2015.
It's now out in shops - it's actually been available for some time - but in the run up to Christmas we decided to get our hands on it and see whether this is actually worth putting on your list.
Your entry point to the world of Anki Drive is the starter kit which contains one massive great mat (measuring 260 by 106 metres, so good luck fitting that in your house), two cars, and all the charging cable junk.
You can buy more cars and different tracks separately.
You'll also need the app - it's available for free on the App Store and works with most iPhones and iPads. There's also an Android app but it's not compatible with many devices currently. Plus, you can't do multiplayer between iOS and Android.
Setting up the game is refreshingly straightforward. As long as Bluetooth is turned on, your phone will automatically find and pair with nearby Anki Drive cars. Players can then pick cars they want, and leftover vehicles can become AI racers.
Then it's just a case of setting up a game mode - you've got race, battle, and practice, putting the cars on the starting line, and saying go.
The cars all move forward by themselves, turn into corners, and try to avoid other racers. Your control is quite limited: you can change the speed, but you're never in danger of flying off the side of the track like in scarelectrix so you'll generally go flat out.
You can also steer, sort of. Tilting your phone left or right will move your car from the outside lane to the inside or back again. But while the speed change is practically instant, this is less responsive so it's not good for quickly evading cars or snaking between lanes for better corners.
Then there's the real meat of the game: combat. You can fire weapons and use tractor beams and unleash other items to slow down and temporarily disable rival racers so you can get ahead in the race.
But you're really going to have to use your imagination here. The cars have little LEDs that flash when you're shooting weapons or getting shot, and your phone makes plenty of noises, but the rest is just in your brain.
You can also upgrade your car and equip different weapons and boost your stats, and there's a whole upgrade path to work through. Luckily, you can balance all the cars back down to the lowest shared level before a race so everyone's on a level playing field.
From a technical perspective, Anki Drive is very impressive. The game works pretty well, the cars stay on course most of the time, and the vehicles react quickly to being shot or you dropping their speed. As a robotics demonstration, it's quite the feat.
But I didn't actually find the game itself that much fun in play. As a racer, it's pretty dull and you don't feel like you have all that much control over the outcome of the race. Everyone just goes flat out, veers into the inside lane, and then waits until the laps are over.
It's supposed to be about battles, of course, but that just doesn't quite work.
You just see little lights and noises and then your car stops for a few seconds which can get super annoying. That's a limitation of the system of course, your car can't drop little mines or shoot tiny bullets like in the toy's advert. But as it stands, it just feels flat and repetitive.
There are also technical issues, like having to keep looking down at your phone to see what's happening or make sure your thumbs are over the right buttons, or the pitiful 20 minute battery life of the cars.
You may find there's some fun to be had with Anki Drive, but probably not enough to warrant rolling up and unrolling this massive mat every time you want to play, dealing with the battery life, or paying the whopping £150 price tag for the starter kit.
There could be a good game in this technology, but Anki Drive isn't really it. You might have a laugh on Christmas morning and enjoy figuring out how it all works. But I bet it will sit in your cupboard, collecting dust, in 2015.
