Philip Colmer
11-26-2003, 07:00 PM
Eight cities, three different cars, four different racing modes. All this is on offer with GTS Racing Challenge ... are you up for it?<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/colmer-nov03-gts-1.gif" /><br /><!><br /><i>GTS Racing Challenge from AstraWare is a visually impressive arcade-style racing game. The number of permutations of tracks, difficulty & modes should keep you occupied for a long time ... if you are into driving games, that is 8) </i><br /><br /><span><b>Getting Started</b></span><br />Installation is very straightforward. Running the downloaded executable kicks off the normal ActiveSync installation. After installing the software, starting the game takes you to the opening screen of a rotating red sports car with a flashing "TAP TO START" message. Tapping the screen takes you to the "Select mode" page, with three of the different race modes disabled until you register the software - a simple process of entering an unlock code.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/colmer-nov03-gts-2.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 1: The Select Mode screen</i><br /><br />Under the options screen, you can set the volume level, the brightness, the car's transmission (automatic, automatic+revs or manual) and the game speed (fast, medium or slow). You can also specify whether you want warning arrows for the corners, lap times displayed, your speed in MPH or KM/H and your name on the leader board. You can also change the controls to suit your taste.<br /><br /><span><b>Picking a Race to Race</b></span><br />The modes available in the full version are: single race, challenge cup, grand tour and championship. For each mode, you get to pick the difficulty level (easy, normal, hard or extreme) and the car you want to drive (sports, coupe or formula), as shown in Figure 2.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/colmer-nov03-gts-3.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 2: Your choice of cars</i><br /><br />The coupe has a V8 turbo engine with 300HP and a maximum speed of 175MPH (as shown in Figure 3), the sports car has a V10 turbo engine with 450HP and a maximum speed of 196MPH, while the formula car has a V12 engine with 570HP and a maximum speed of 212MPH. It isn't really clear to me how that translates into different performance characteristics within the game, although I did find the formula car faster to turn and less prone to getting stuck when you fall off the track.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/colmer-nov03-gts-4.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 3: The sports car</i><br /><PAGEBREAK><br />In single race mode, you get to pick the track you want to drive on. Your choices include Honolulu, New England, Seattle, New York City, Denver, Chicago, San Francisco or Nevada. The layout of the circuit depends on the difficulty level you've selected. The various Honolulu circuits are shown in Figures 4 to 7.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/colmer-nov03-gts-5.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 4: The easy Honolulu circuit</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/colmer-nov03-gts-6.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 5: The normal Honolulu circuit</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/colmer-nov03-gts-7.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 6: The hard Honolulu circuit</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/colmer-nov03-gts-8.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 7: The extreme Honolulu circuit</i><br /><PAGEBREAK><br />In challenge cup mode, you get to drive on each of the eight locations, with the layout of the circuits being set by the difficulty level you've selected. In addition, the harder the difficulty level, the higher up you must finish in order to continue with the challenge.<br /><br />In grand tour mode, you drive on all 32 permutations of the courses (eight locations, four different track layouts). As with the challenge cup, the harder the difficulty level, the higher up you must finish in order to continue on to the next race.<br /><br />In championship mode, you visit each circuit in turn with the layout depending on the difficulty level you've selected. You have to race alone to begin with, to set your position on the starting grid. Then you race on the circuit again with everyone else. You get points depending on where you finish in each race (10, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 point respectively) with the leader board building as you visit each location.<br /><br />What I did like is that if you need to stop playing the game, for whatever reason, you can resume it later on. Quitting the game closes it completely and, when you next run it, you are reminded of the race you were playing and asked if you want to resume it.<br /><br /><span><b>The Thrill of the Race</b></span><br />The game is very easy to play, which is just as well because I'm pretty hopeless at this sort of thing :-). That isn't to say that the game is easy to win - just that hitting other cars or coming off the course doesn't result in much apart from a bruised ego or some satisfaction at ramming the idiot who just got in your way.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/colmer-nov03-gts-9.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 8: The countdown starts!</i><br /><br />If you want to take it easy, you can leave the car on automatic, press the accelerator and steer your way around the course ... so long as your Pocket PC allows you to press multiple hardware buttons. My iPAQ 3660 doesn't and that did somewhat reduce my enjoyment of playing as I had to stop steering, stab at the accelerator a bit and then carry on steering again. If I was unlucky, the software didn't spot me changing from one button to another and the car would just go straight on into a tree. I then had to reverse out back onto the road & try again - a somewhat tricky proposition when you've got to have some motion before you can steer and by the time you've got enough acceleration up to keep you going, you are off the road again :-(<br /><br />I did have a brief opportunity to try the game out on a Dell Axim X3, mainly to satisfy myself that is was just my aged iPAQ that spoiled things. The difference in speed was amazing, particularly the speed at which the car suddenly started turning off the track when I tried to steer. Hopefully, given time, my thumb would restrain itself away from the "press down hard & hope" mode of playing on the iPAQ :-)<br /><br />The visuals are really good. The backgrounds are beautiful and represent the location of the course. It was a bit disappointing that the graphics to the sides of the course were more simple, i.e. trees but, I guess that when you are concentrating on the race itself, you aren't really going to be <b>too</b> bothered about the scenery :wink: <br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/colmer-nov03-gts-10.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 9: Trying not to stay at the back of the pack</i> :oops: <br /><br />The view is always from behind & slightly above the car. This means that you don't get any mirrors to see if someone is creeping up on you, but the map navigator helps a bit in that respect as it shows the relative positions of each of the cars but the only car that is identified is yours. All of the other cars are grey. If cars are being lapped, it suddenly becomes a bit tricky to figure out where the first-place holder is in the mass of blobs.<br /><br />The sound part of the game consists of engine noise, revs, crashes, skids, gravel and some beeps when the race is counting down. It would have been nice, I think, to have had <i>some</i> background music. The sort of music you get if you play OutRun ... nothing too heavy, just some nice plinky background music :-). That said, what sound there is is certainly up to the task of giving you audio feedback as to the torture you are giving your car!<br /><br /><span><b>Gotchas</b></span><br />It isn't really the fault of the game that my iPAQ doesn't support the concept of me pressing on the d-pad & an application button at the same time. However, it did have an impact on my enjoyment of the game and if you think you've got a Pocket PC that suffers from the same fate, you should play the trial version first.<br /><br />It would be nice to have some background music and perhaps a multi-player mode with Bluetooth or Wi-Fi? I would have suggested infrared, but it is all too easy to get physically agitated when you are playing a game like this, with the result that you've lost line of sight and the infrared link goes :-)<br /><br />Best of all, though, would be if a manual was supplied. Just because this is a game with a relatively simple concept doesn't mean that everyone is easily going to understand how to play the game or to get the best out of it. For example, what <i>is</i> the difference in playability between the choice of cars and the difference in modes? I had to work out the modes myself, so if there are any errors in the descriptions above, it is down to a lack of manual.<br /><br /><span><b>Where To Buy</b></span><br />The software can be <a href="http://www.handango.com/brainstore/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&productId=82753">downloaded from Handango</a> or purchased from $17.95 (affiliate link).<br /><br /><span><b>Specifications</b></span><br />The game requires 1.2M memory and will run on a Pocket PC 2002 or 2003 device (ARM or XScale processor).<br /><br /><span><b>Conclusions</b></span><br />This is a well designed game with a lot of things going for it. It isn't too hard to get into and you can notch up the difficulty factor by quite a bit through different levels, modes of playing, and choice of cars. It could be improved, though - not by much, admittedly, but enough to hope that Astraware think about working on a second version. Now, where's that Axim gone ... ?