Amazon / Games / HILL CLIMB RACING
REVIEW
Hill Climb Racing still rolls because the physics never stopped being funny.
Fingersoft's 2012 ragdoll racer crossed two billion downloads in January and shows up on Fire tablets as the same wobbly, one-finger commitment device it always was.
BY THE APP COMRADE DESK · MAY 10, 2026 · 5 MIN READ
Hill Climb Racing
FINGERSOFT
OUR SCORE
7.6
AMAZON
★ 4.2
PRICE
Free
Hill Climb Racing turned thirteen this year and crossed two billion downloads in January, which is the kind of number that should belong to a game with quarterly press cycles and a Netflix tie-in. Instead it belongs to a two-pedal physics toy that a Finnish developer in Oulu built in 2012 to test a 2D engine. The Amazon Appstore version on Fire tablets is the same toy.
What keeps it on Fire devices is the thing that put it on every other device first: the gas pedal and the brake pedal are the entire game, and the entire game is watching Newton Bill’s head ricochet off his own steering wheel. Fingersoft has added vehicles, stages, and an Automobile in the last update, but the core loop is unchanged, and the joke is still landing because the physics keep writing new punchlines.
The case for the original over Hill Climb Racing 2 on a Fire tablet is simple — fewer ads, no multiplayer pressure, and a progression curve short enough to actually finish. The case against it is that Fingersoft has clearly moved on to the third game, and the seams are starting to show on bigger Fire screens.
The joke is the same one Fingersoft told in 2012, and the joke is still landing because the physics keep writing new punchlines.
FEATURES
Two pedals do everything. The right one is the gas, the left one is the brake, and physics handles the comedy in between. Newton Bill drives a growing fleet — jeep, motocross bike, monster truck, tank, on up through the Automobile that Fingersoft slipped into a recent update — across procedurally hilly stages from Countryside to Moon. Coins live on the road and at the end of each run; you spend them on engine, suspension, tyres, and 4WD upgrades that visibly change how a vehicle handles a hill.
The Fire-tablet build is the same single-player loop that has run for thirteen years: drive until you flip, run out of fuel, or snap Bill's neck on a hard landing, then bank coins toward the next upgrade. There's no multiplayer here — that lives in Hill Climb Racing 2 — and no live-service furniture. Ads are mostly opt-in: watch one to double a coin payout, skip one to keep going.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
The control scheme is the win, and it has aged better than almost anything else from the 2012 App Store. Two on-screen pedals leave room for the joke the game is actually telling — that a station wagon meeting a steep hill is funny in a way a polished racing sim cannot be. Thirteen years of vehicle additions have not diluted that core; the new Automobile slots in next to the original Jeep without rewriting the physics that make Bill's head bounce.
Monetisation on the original game is also notably restrained for its vintage. Coin-doubling rewarded ads, the occasional interstitial, and a coins IAP — that's the menu. Compared to Hill Climb Racing 2's heavier ad and gacha machinery, the first game still feels like a 2014 freemium title that quietly forgot to escalate.
ROOM TO IMPROVE
The Amazon Appstore version inherits the original's age. Backgrounds are flat 2D, animations are stiff next to the 3D sequel, and there is nothing here to chase after you've upgraded every vehicle on every stage. Fingersoft's energy is clearly on Hill Climb Racing 3, which entered open beta in five European countries this year, and the original's updates have slowed to occasional vehicle drops.
The Fire tablet build also shows its bones in small ways — UI scaling on the larger Fire HD 10 leaves coin counts smaller than they should be, and the Amazon Appstore review queue still surfaces complaints about ad frequency creeping up on lower-spec hardware. None of it breaks the loop, but anyone arriving from the slicker sequel will notice the seams.
CONCLUSION
Hill Climb Racing on Amazon is the right pick if you want the original joke without the live-service overhead. Install it on a Fire tablet for a kid, a flight, or a waiting room and it will do exactly what it did in 2012. If you want progression systems, multiplayer, or 3D, jump to Hill Climb Racing 2 — and keep an eye on the third game once the open beta widens.