Five arcade racers worth your thumbs right now

Arcade racers live or die by feel, and feel is hard to fake in a trailer. These are the five we keep coming back to this month, tested across a couple of phones each.

Top of the pile for us is Nitro District, which nails the drift-and-boost loop better than anything we've tried lately. The braking tap into a slide just feels right, and it never pressures you to pay your way to a faster car.

If you want something lighter, there are plenty of casual racers that favour score chasing over tight corners. Those are great for a bus ride but tend to wear thin after a week. We've noted which ones have staying power and which fade fast.

One piece of advice for anyone picking a racer: ignore the graphics screenshots and look at how the controls work. Tilt, tap-to-steer, and on-screen buttons all feel wildly different, and the wrong scheme can ruin an otherwise great game.