Putting a fresh spin on iOS racers, Slingshot Racing ditches traditional steering and gas controls and simply lets you tap the screen to grapple onto nearby pillars and whip around turns. As such, timing and momentum take center stage in these looping, steampunk-themed environments, with a variety of play modes included across distinctive tracks.

In some stages, you'll simply race against the competition, aiming to pass computer-controlled foes while avoiding bunch-ups on turns. Elsewhere, you'll collect a certain number of bolts on a track to complete the stage, outrun a raging monster vehicle that starts behind the pack, or simply aim to set the top time on a location. Plenty of play modes keep things fairly interesting, though you'll see the same tracks pretty often.

The universal app looks fantastic on Retina devices, and the tracks are well designed, despite the noted repetition. You might feel detached from the action a bit, considering the indirect driving approach, but at least the game feels wholly unique; so does its multiplayer mode, which lets up to four players duke it out on quadrants of the same iPad or iPhone screen.

The bottom line. It's hardly traditional, but Slingshot Racing is an entertaining and highly attractive original iOS racer.