Tilt steering or on-screen buttons? A field test

This debate comes up every time we review a racing game, so we finally sat down and tested it properly. Same car, same tracks, same driver, alternating control schemes over an evening.

Tilt won on the feeling of speed. There's something about physically leaning the phone that connects you to the car, especially on sweeping high-speed corners. It also frees up your thumbs from covering part of the screen.

But buttons won on precision. In tight technical sections, the on-screen wheel let us hit apexes we kept blowing on tilt. If a track is all hairpins, buttons are simply more repeatable.

The honest answer is that it depends on the game and the track. Our advice: learn both, and switch based on what you're racing. Locking yourself into one scheme is leaving lap time on the table.