Cro-Mag Rally is a racing game you play as a caveman. There are ten themed vehicles to choose from including the Mammoth Mobile, built from a pair of tusks and the Geode Cruiser, which is half a geode on wheels. Not all vehicles are caveman-themed, you also have the option of driving a Trojan horse, a catapult and an old military-style chariot.
Race tracks span the Globe and are as varied as the vehicles. You can race through tracks themed on a desert, jungle, glacier, the island of Crete, the Great Wall of China, Egypt as well as Medieval and Viking towns. An underwater location themed on the city of Atlantis makes use of submarines and expands on the accelerometer-based controls to account for changing depth.
The Atlantis track seems detached from the rest of the game and feels a bit experimental, but it's a fun track to play.
Power-ups can be collected by driving into them on tracks. Power-ups enhance your vehicle with "sticky tires" or improved suspension for a limited period of time.
Weapons can be collected in the same way as power-ups and work in a similar way to Mario Cart games. You can launch bones, firecrackers, homing pigeons and oil slicks either forwards or backwards to cause trouble for the other racers.
Overall the game feels very polished. The occasional 3D dinosaur passing over a menu screen shows the attention to detail that has gone into the design. The on-screen controls fit the caveman theme, appearing as arrow heads.
In addition to well-done visuals, sound in Cro-Mag is excellent. Each track has its own music and events like collecting a power-up are accompanied by professional-sounding announcements.
There are only a couple of negative aspects of the game. Once you get the hang of the controls, the AI racers aren't much of a challenge. It's very easy on some tracks to get so far ahead that you're almost coming up behind them.
The game lacks any kind of career mode, so there are no extra tracks or vehicles to unlock as you progress. Not even your vehicle selection is remembered between racings, forcing you to choose again before playing another track. This makes Cro-Mag create for casual gaming but looses some of its appeal to players who like to work towards goals in games.
Cro-Mag Rally is $1.99 in the Apple App Store.