Apple / games / HILL CLIMB RACING
REVIEW
Hill Climb Racing is the iPhone time-killer that refuses to retire.
Fourteen years in, Newton Bill still rolls the same lopsided physics across the same hills — and the iOS build is quietly the better version.
BY THE APP COMRADE DESK · MAY 11, 2026 · 4 MIN READ
Most mobile games from 2012 are gone. Some got sequels that ate them; most got delisted; a handful sit in the App Store as dignified relics nobody opens. Hill Climb Racing is the one that just kept rolling. Fingersoft’s lopsided physics sandbox is fourteen years old this year, and on iPhone it’s still inside the top fifty free games on any given week.
The reason is the thing it does that no sequel and no competitor has improved on. The wheels are square in spirit, the suspension is comically loose, and that’s the entire point. You’re not racing the clock, the AI, or another player. You’re racing the moment the chassis decides to flip onto its roof.
On iOS specifically, the version you’re playing is the better one. The 4.58 star average sits a full third of a point above the Google Play build for a reason — fewer ads in the free tier, a cleaner Game Center hookup, and an iCloud save that has quietly outlasted three of your iPhones.
The wheels are square in spirit, the suspension is comically loose, and that's the entire point.
FEATURES
You drive Newton Bill — a hapless aspiring uphill driver — across procedurally extending terrain made of cartoonish hills, bridges, and the occasional moon. Two on-screen pedals: gas on the right, brake on the left. That's it. Everything else is suspension physics, fuel pickups, and the slow grind of coin-funded upgrades.
The vehicle list runs from a beat-up Jeep through monster trucks, motocross bikes, a tank, and a lunar rover, each with its own balance characteristics. Stages range from the original Countryside to Arctic, Desert, Moonscape, and a long tail of themed maps unlocked by coins or in-app purchases. Game Center handles leaderboards and achievements, and iCloud quietly syncs progress across iPhone, iPad, and any Mac that runs iOS apps — so a long Cave run on the iPad picks up on the iPhone at lunch.
The iOS build also ships a paid Plus tier that removes ads outright, which is the version most long-time players end up on within a week.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
The driving feel is the whole product, and it still works. Bill's centre of gravity, the way the chassis pitches over a crest, the moment of held breath before the back wheels touch down — Fingersoft locked that in 2012 and has resisted every temptation to "modernise" it. Nothing about a backflip on a motocross bike feels engineered; it feels like an accident the physics let you have.
The iPhone version is also where the platform layer pays for itself. Game Center leaderboards give a real reason to chase another fifty metres on Highway, and iCloud save means you don't lose six months of garage progress when you upgrade your phone. The 4.58 App Store rating versus the 4.20 on Google Play isn't an accident — Fingersoft has historically pushed the cleaner build to iOS and let the Android version absorb more aggressive ad placements.
ROOM TO IMPROVE
Ads on the free tier are the obvious tax. Interstitials between runs, rewarded videos for double-coin pickups, and a banner that never quite leaves the garage. The Plus IAP solves it, but the free experience in 2026 is noticeably noisier than it was even three years ago.
Polish is the other honest caveat. The UI hasn't really moved since the iPhone 6 era — menus feel cramped on a 6.7-inch screen, the typography is dated, and Dynamic Type is ignored entirely. There's no native iPad layout beyond a stretched phone build, no controller support worth mentioning, and the soundtrack is still the same three loops it was launched with. Hill Climb Racing 2 exists on iOS as a separate app, and at this point the original is held together more by muscle memory than maintenance.
CONCLUSION
Install it if you want a five-minute physics-comedy session that still works on the bus and don't mind the ads, or buy Plus and forget about them. Skip it if you came expecting modern game-feel, controller support, or anything resembling a 2026 UI. Hill Climb Racing 2 is the obvious next stop once Bill's first garage starts to feel small.