Endless shooting and high-octane action! Fastlane: Road to Revenge is the kind of game that hooks you from the get-go.
Space Ape Games, the maker of Fastlane: Road to Revenge, fired up all their creative pistons when they made this vertical-scrolling shooter. Lively visuals, tasteful references to street and gang life, energetic soundtrack, and a pace that can knock on your adrenaline’s doors—they’re all here!
In terms of the game’s overall look, Fastlane: Road to Revenge took noticeable influences from famous brands and franchises like Grand Theft Auto and Fast and The Furious. As for how it feels, the simplistic, must-hold touch control is a refreshing take that breathes new life into an old genre’s format.
Although it is fitted with simple mechanics, the game is still presented with a backstory. You play the character of a seasoned rage racer who everyone in the game thought to have died in a race. In your absence, new names claimed to be the current rulers of the road. Your mission is to rebuild your reputation, exacting vengeance one street at a time.
The gameplay is strongly comparable to Jetpack Joyride. You start each run at a manageable pace and it increases gradually, which makes evading threats much more difficult the farther you travel. Your ability to reach further depends on how well you can evade road blocks and projectiles while staying ready to pick up loots.
Keen eyes, a nimble finger, and quick reaction time will be your keys to a productive race—that’s the skill dynamic. Everything outside of skill, we got you covered in this Fastlane: Road to Revenge guide.
Fasten your seatbelts and keep your eyes on the road as we here, in Level Winner, open the highway to high scores with the following tips, tricks, and strategies!
1. FIND YOUR COMFORT CONTROL AND ORIENTATION
Although Fastlane: Road to Revenge offers just one mode for control (single finger hold) and orientation (portrait/vertical), don’t feel limited to try what works best for you.
Of all the 2D scrolling titles in the mobile games market, it is closest to Jetpack Joyride which has a landscape/horizontal orientation. If you are used to holding the phone on “game mode” or landscape, you can start feeling out your way through Fastlane: Road to Revenge in this way until you are acclimated with the basics.
While this is a rather optional trick, it’s a good way to see oncoming threats better. Additionally, since playing in landscape forces you to play with two hands, your controlling hand won’t have to bear the entire weight of your phone, thus allowing you to steer better.
Once you get a hang of the game’s mechanics, switch back to portrait/vertical and you’ll be ready to trounce rivals and bosses!
2. FOCUS ON ONE LOOT AT A TIME
As you blast enemies, loots will come flying and it can get overwhelming (confusing, even) when a lot appears at the same time. The natural tendency is to weave left and right in hopes of catching everything. While that helps in assuring that you bag as many loots as possible, it is a fairly inefficient and dangerous tactic.
Grabbing Cash should be the last on your list as focusing on them is simply not worth the split seconds you could be devoting to grab better options. The rule is simple: rarity is the priority. You should focus on the ones that are hard to come by which are Diamonds and Special Vehicle cubes.
The next ones you should aim for are power-ups. Due to the outright benefit it gives, the top power-up you should be bagging is Nitro. When there’s no Nitro on the loose, prioritize to get Magnet > Damage Boost > Drone > x2 > XP.
When your health is low, you must hunt for Heath Packs until you’re all healed up. Keep in mind though, that as the race progresses, your window of time to gun targets down decreases, so you will likely need to have a Damage Boost to give you a decent chance in quick-killing the vehicles that carry Health Packs.
3. WASTE NO TIME TO UPGRADE YOUR WEAPONS
When you see a notification marker at the home or main screen, it means that you have enough resources to purchase an upgrade in any of the shops. The progress in Fastlane Road to Revenge is linear—you only go forward. The features you can unlock the latter are always more powerful than the former.
The upgrade priority should be machine gun (main gun) > armor > extra guns. You are not obligated to max out any of the three. As you improve your maneuvering and increase your familiarity with tricks and timings, you will have enough skill to bridge what you lack in armor and weapon levels. A weaponized vehicle can only be as deadly as the driver, after all.
Unlocking the extra guns requires Diamonds and, for the first two vehicles (Samba and Banger), you can skip it. It will be better to save Diamonds to get Broadside quicker since the tactical advantage these diagonal-shooting guns offer won’t be necessary at the very early game.
It is possible to defeat bosses even without buying the extra guns once you have already mastered the track. However, it will likely require 1-2 continues and to activate a full set of race boosts.
Upgrading your weapons is mandatory not only to increase your firepower but also to advance your position in a street. You will notice that, if you upgrade your main gun (past levels 5 and 10 and get it to 15), the colors of your projectiles and enemy vehicles will change; this is the game’s way of showing that your current tools are already optimized to reach further into race and knock off rivals.
The above means that, you will be compelled to spend Cash to upgrade your weapons because it is the way to close the gap between you and the next rivals and to eventually catch up with the stage’s boss.
4. PUMP UP YOUR POWER-UPS
Power-ups can be upgraded at the Workshop and, just like the Auto Shop, there will be a notification marker as long as you have enough resources to afford an upgrade. True to how power-ups work in most games, the ones in Fastlane: Road To Revenge all bring unique benefits to help you in your races.
It’s important to note, though, that unlike in other scrolling shooters, there are no power-ups that can alter your weapon and turn you into a homing-attack menace. Add to that, all forms of boosts are only temporary.
While there is a tooltip available, the description for each power-up is rather stylized or incomplete, so for clarity’s sake here are the power-ups in Fastlane: Road to Revenge and what they can do for you.
Health Pack | Effect: Instant | Source: medic trucks
As the name suggests, Health Packs will replenish your HP for a certain amount upon pick up. The health you can regenerate from one varies, depending on the power-up’s level in your Workshop. You can increase the minimum amount it gives with a ratio of 5% health per upgrade level.
Given the above, you will need to upgrade it to level 5 at least so you can “feel” the effect. In our experience, we pushed ours to level 7 so colliding with a medic truck will allow us to survive even at low health (+20% HP remaining).
Damage Boost | Effect: Durational | Source: random
Damage Boosts amps your main gun for a limited time. Their effect makes up for the upgrade levels you lack for your main gun since collecting enough of it can allow you to fire five front-facing projectiles at once. Any further pickups of the same power-up will act as a duration extension as soon as the five-gun cap is reached.
Having as much firepower as possible is very important especially when a race reaches its maximum speed (it activates at the 90th second). By then, you will have a shorter time to position yourself in lanes and take targets out. If you only have three guns up, going after a target you could kill in a blink with five guns may end up in a collision and this will eat out your HP.
Nitro | Effect: durational | Source: in-race, random; pre-race, ads
Nitro is the most powerful of the bunch. While on Nitro, you will move faster through the track and negate all the damage and threats you will run into—this includes projectiles (bullets and rockets), road blocks, and collisions with other vehicles. Rivals that you run into while on Nitro will be instantly killed as well.
Since it has the greatest utility among all power-ups, we suggest to prioritize upgrading it or setting it a couple of levels higher than the rest. Each upgrade level translates to a 0.5-second increase in duration for a Nitro pick-up. Note that the pre-race boost is the maximum version which lasts for 10 seconds.
Magnetic Field | Effect: durational | Source: random
The description tells it is a dollar magnet but it does not only work on Cash; this power-up will pull all swooping loot towards you. Its effective range is the width of 1.5 lanes to your left and right, so you will still need to maneuver a bit to grab everything, especially if you’re hugging a side lane.
It is the cheapest to upgrade and every level it has will increase the buff’s duration by 1 second; you won’t have a reason to not promote it to at least level 7. Take note, however, that it cannot pull Special Vehicle cubes so you still have to manually steer to get them.
Rep Boost and Mega Booster | Effect: in-race, durational; pre-race, permanent |Source: in-race, random; ads and jobs
A Rep Boost doubles the Reputation you get from every kill while the buff is active. Through the help of this power-up, you can reach your next rival sooner since you will need fewer kills and travel less distance to hit a target Reputation.
The effect of a Rep Boost power-up can be increased by 0.5 seconds per upgrade level. If you do not wish to worry about its limited duration, you can opt to activate a Mega Booster.
A Mega Booster, although rare and only randomly obtainable from Booster reward opportunities, is an incredible buff. When one is active, every kill, by default, will give twice the Reputation. Picking up a Rep Boost will amplify it even more—you will get x4.
Special Vehicle | Effect: durational | Source: random
Picking up a Special Vehicle cube transforms the race into a 6-second phase aboard a random combat vehicle. The duration is fixed but it is a worry-free state since you will not take damage, quickly gain rep, and earn a bulk amount of Cash.
Regardless of how many kills you get while on a Special Vehicle, you will receive Cash at the end of the phase and the amount depends on their Workshop upgrade level. The Cash bonuses also vary depending on which vehicle you will be briefly in command of. The Talon Gunship can net you at least $2000, the Vulcan S-22 will give you an extra $3000, and the Tempest C-3 can grant you above $4000.
Note that you will be transported to the off-race view as soon as you touch the cube, so you will any lose the loot that is far from you. On the flip side, all incoming projectiles and threats will be negated too, therefore giving the act of picking it up some defensive utility.
SPECIAL MENTIONS:
XP++ | Effect: in-race, score tally; pre-race, permanent | Source: in-race random and armored cards; pre-race, ads
All the XP++ you can collect will only kick in once the race is over. At every post-race tally, every rival you killed and XP++ you picked up will be credited toward your account’s overall experience.
In concept, XP++ is somewhat similar to Rep Boost; the former lets you hit a short-term (within a race) goal sooner and the latter gives a long-term (account-wide) benefit. The more XP you earn, the quicker you can reach the reward checkpoints that each level offers.
If you use the XP Race Boost, every XP++ you can loot will give twice the amount of experience points, thus pushing you to level up quicker. Earlier in a race, they will appear randomly but as you hit the 90-second mark, cars that are slightly armored will begin to appear. These cars will drop three XP++; the ones with a siren will give three bundles of Cash or quest collectible items.
Drone | Effect: durational | Source: random
Drones aid you in a race and they have varying functions. There are 11 different kinds; six of which are offensive and five are defensive.
You can equip up to two drones at a time and they will cling on your vehicle for 6 to 8 seconds. Getting another Drone power-up when you already have two will not replace either of the current ones but will lengthen the duration of the one meant to expire first.
It will likely require months of gameplay to unlock all types since it takes a lot of time and work to farm up 50 tickets to afford a Drone Box. Not only that, what you can get from each opening is random. We weren’t too fortunate with the RNG as most of what we got are duplicates; a dupe will allow you to further upgrade a Drone type in increments of five.
5. ABUSE THE GAME’S PAUSE MECHANIC
We do not mean to use an aggressive word here, but in quickly pushing to develop a solid account to create this guide, we wouldn’t be shy to admit to overusing this feature. In a game that is meant to create pressure and demand focus, the ability to pause is golden.
By simply lifting your control finger, the game will enter a pseudo pause. This will not exactly freeze the race at a full stop but everything will be in super slow-motion. Loots flying your way will reach you; the same is true with all projectiles aimed at you.
While the slow-mo mode won’t save you from the damage from rockets and bullets (red projectiles), it will let you survey the track and plan your next move. There will be times when three to four armed enemies are in view and dodging their attacks would force you to do quick swipes just to avoid damage.
You can set those swipes by pausing the race first and assessing the safest lane to be on. Try to move your vehicle with either a quick, big swipe or a few “micro” swipes. This trick is also ideal when you’re caught in the wrong lane and need to be on the opposite side of the track.
The race will only return to normal speed once the screen detects your finger for one full second. If you can swipe really fast, you can reposition your vehicle to a different lane without even resuming the race! This move is useful not just for survival but also for collecting valuable loot that will likely exit the screen at the same time.
6. BE FAMILIAR WITH THREAT PATTERNS
Due to the sheer pace of a race, everything you encounter may appear overwhelming especially when multiple enemies, power-ups, and oncoming projectiles appear all at once. But just like every PvE game, all that can kill you has a pattern.
Road blocks have about a screen-long length of rumble strips (orange lines) as their form of warning. Also, depending on which sector/area you’re in, road blocks will have a noticeable pattern whether they are in a series or simply meant to force a chokepoint.
Rockets, for their part, always come with an exclamation mark warning on the lanes they will travel on. The speed at which the rockets fly increases as the race progresses but their timing is constant; they are released at exactly 2 seconds after a warning signal’s appearance.
Solo rockets that come through choke points are released with longer aim times but it shouldn’t be an issue avoiding them. You will eventually have enough space to avoid them, just like how things work with rockets that track your location for a bit.
Another threat that comes with a warning signal is rows of armored vans. While they cannot instantly kill you, colliding with them can take more than half of your HP bar so the best way to deal with them is to gun one down when there is still distance or just take an unguarded lane.
7. DON’T LET THE ADS SLIP AWAY
Every time a race ends, you will be served an ad-viewing opportunity. Its availability window spans from five to 15 seconds, which you can skip by tapping anywhere on the screen but the button that starts it.
Despite the option to skip, doing that is inadvisable. Watching ads is your primary way to earn diamonds without topping up in Fastlane: Road to Revenge.
The most common ad reward set gives Cash and two Diamonds apiece; there will even be times you may be offered to get six. You need a sizeable amount of Diamonds to buy the next vehicle. But worry not, as long as you on keep playing, you won’t notice that you are already closing into a required amount.
The Diamonds you can freely earn through ads essentially let you pay for another life in a race without hurting your farming efforts. Reviving for the first time in a race only costs 1 Diamond and it goes up by +2 every consecutive use. Only consider reviving more than once when you’re already at the tail end of the street or during a boss battle.
Apart from the Diamonds, watching ads also gives you a strategic advantage that you can fully enjoy when you’re already skilled enough to last at least two minutes in a race. Consistently watching ads synergizes with the fairly short Fuel regeneration time (5 minutes each).
Fuel is your energy in Fastlane: Road to Revenge—your token for starting a race. Although the default cap is just five, lasting a decent amount of time in races plus watching ads can allow you to hold a marathon session!
8. PRIORITIZE GETTING JOBS DONE
Completing jobs is a nice way to earn extra resources in Fastlane: Road to Revenge. Jobs offer a variety of perks ranging from Cash, Diamonds, Spray Paints, Fuel, XP, and Drone tickets. You got plenty of reasons to finish each set and most of them have tasks that you can accomplish passively by just playing well.
If you have the reflexes and fine control skills that allow you to hold long runs in Temple Run, Subway Surfer, and Jetpack Joyride, you will blast through these challenges with ease. However, not all tasks are equal; some can be quite a pain to beat. Here are our tips to conquer the trickier jobs in Fastlane: Road to Revenge.
Narrowly Avoid
These tasks are gnarly and will prove to be the hardest to accomplish. You are required to play with threats that can bring you instant death—road blocks and rockets. Take note of the following tips to outsmart the game’s danger dynamics:
– A near-miss will automatically count if you are UNDER or very close to where the threat is and have survived it. This means that tanking road blocks/rockets while under the effect of a Nitro or quickly reviving when you got killed by one will chalk a score for you.
– When under the effect of Nitro, you can take advantage of the temporary invulnerability by timing a swipe to catch a row of rockets. Running head-on to a barrier or catching a rocket while Nitro-boosted counts as a near-miss.
– Prioritize accomplishing these tasks early in a race when the pace is still slow so it’s easier to avoid threats by microseconds.
– Capitalize on the focused phases against enemy trucks. Since you will only need to worry about two threats in these solo battles, take advantage of these encounters and milk the constant flow of rockets.
Lane Fury
Since no lane is safer than another, the tasks that require you to stay on a particular may, at times, prove difficult. Still, the request is straightforward, all you need is to spend the total amount of seconds that the task requires while keeping in mind these guidelines:
– Prioritize staying on a prescribed lane; temporarily let go of the comfort of staying in the middle lane if the task requires a different side.
– Every millisecond is counted so momentarily shifting lanes is okay, especially when avoiding threats.
– When there are no rockets or shooting enemies in sight, briefly pan on the other lanes to blast opponents. You will need to secure a few Damage Boosts to ensure you have enough firepower when the race reaches maximum speed.
Killing Rivals
Rivals are only as tough as the armored cars that carry XP++ and they instantly get destroyed when you’re on Nitro or when a nearby gasoline truck explodes around them. Eliminating them is the easy part; reaching them is where the challenge lies. Take note of these pointers as you hunt them down:
– Your distance from the next rival depends on your Reputation points so playing safe is a must. You passively gain Reputation as you move forward; no need to be kill-hungry and reckless.
– Switching to a higher vehicle or upgrading your primary and secondary guns will cut your distance short. Remember that the game dynamic adjusts forward with your vehicle’s offensive capabilities, so having better sets you to start a race closer to the next rival.
– Activating all three Race Boosts puts you in a good position to catch up with your next rival quickly. Save your Mega Boosters and only use them when you get stuck.
Killing Bosses
The tallest of all orders; bosses are tough and each battle requires you to avoid two damage sources while dishing damage yourself. Boss battles may appear intimidating but you can show them who the true boss is by doing the following:
– Keep in mind the enemy trucks and main stage bosses both count. No need to feel pressured about trying to get to the actual stage boss to check such jobs off.
– When dealing with enemy trucks, try to lure the big rocket away from where you intend to shoot. Since bosses stay in the three middle lanes, be on the outer lanes when the warning signal begins and then swoop to the center once the tracker stops.
– Stage bosses have more HP than enemy trucks but are easier to deal with. They are armed with a small rocket (instant kill) and machine gun (cumulative damage). While both weapons can be fired in your direction, it is easier to potshot them as you evade them. Try to land hits when their attacks are in cooldown.
– If you get killed, do not hesitate to continue once or twice since they hold a good chance to drop Diamonds upon death. Finishing a stage awards you a large amount of Diamonds so sacrificing a few will be worth it.
You can shift to a lower gear now as that’s the end of our Fastlane: Road to Revenge guide!
If you have read and ridden shotgun from the start until this point, we like to thank you for spending time checking out the tips, tricks, and strategies that we imparted here.
Fastlane: Road to Revenge is a fast-paced game meant to be played when you have idle minutes, so don’t be in a rush to better in it. While it will take time to breach the global or Elite rankings, we are at least confident that what you can learn from this guide will set you on that exact road to the top.
Whether you’re a beginner or an Elite racer, feel free to use the comments sections below if you have questions to ask or tips to share. Know that you are welcome not just in the Fastlane but here in Level Winner too!