French development house Antek Studio has recently released Pirate Wings [App Store], a futuristic racing game featuring casual combat elements, for the iPhone and iPod touch.

3D racer Pirate Wings puts you in the shoes of monkey rocket jockey Raoul or one of his friends in a cartoony but dangerous race to the finish line.  Besides dodging the course's twists, turns, and obstacles, there's also the element of combat; you've got lasers, rockets, and mines to help eliminate the competition.

The game features three play modes:

• Races Mode with 9 race circuits, 3 different environments (Canyons, Underwater world, Outer Space), 4 characters and 12 ships available for 3 levels of difficulty. Use your lasers, missiles, mines and Boost to finish first.
• Story Mode where you'll discover the incredible adventure of Raoul, a canyon pilot who will ally with the space pirates to avoid the trap of the defiant commander Burp in 19 original missions.
• Ghost mode to improve your lap time and compare your scores online.

Pirate Wings features accelerometer-based ship control (that automatically re-calibrates at the start of each race) with onscreen touch and swipe controls for speed boost, brakes, firing lasers, launching rockets, and dropping mines. An upbeat electronic / techno audio track compliments the gameplay.

The game is being discussed in a thread on our forums but has had mixed reactions for the initial release. Issues that users (and we've) seen include crashing and intermittent control issues. A member of Antek's Pirate Wings team has jumped into the discussion and indicates that several of these issues are being addressed in an imminent update.

While it would have been hard to recommend this first version at its $5.99 original price, the developer has temporarily dropped the price to $0.99 — making it a far less risky proposition.

See the developer's game trailer for a closer look.

App Store Link: Pirate Wings, $0.99 (on sale)