Asphalt: Urban GT

"Don't Believe the... umm... anti-hype"

Asphalt Urban is much better than the score most gaming websites gave it. The only thing they most could fault was lack of diverse engine noises. The tracks are diverse (even if there aren't many) there's a wide variety of cars and tuning options which actually change the way your car handles, and evolution mode is stupidly addictive. This game doesn't suck, so if you are thinking about getting it, get it, unless you're REEEEEALLLY waiting for RR. Here's what I thought:

Graphics
Cars look a bit blocky, but they have the look of the cars they're meant to represent and the textures on cars look good. The road textures are cool, they're made so they produce kind of a speed-blur effect, which heightens the sense of speed but looks slightly off when not moving very fast. The sky doesn't move, but considering how strange it looked in many other racers when it did move, this doesn't bother me and doesn't distract. Some of the roadside objects are really obviously 2-d (ala Cruisin' games) but usually this isn't too distracting. Graphics are probably around n64 level, with slightly more pop-in, but smoother lines.

My score: 7.0 (out of 10)
It's very good looking compared with other current DS titles, but I think that there are a few small issues that could have been cleaned up from the N-Gage

Gameplay
There are two main modes, an arcade mode for quick racing, and the "Evolution" mode, which is a pretty generic career mode, but it's carried off well enough as to be fun Within Arcade Mode we have Instant Play mode (a random race type and track), Road Challenge (a simple circuit-like mode), Free Race (wander around the tracks with no time limit), Time Attack, and the most interesting of these, Cop Chase. In this mode you will have to drive around the tracks in your outlandishly awesome (and unrealistic, but it's cool, so who cares) cop car and get behind the enemy cars. Once you are close enough, you must follow closely behind them for a few seconds and they will be eliminated, giving you a few seconds of extra time. You must eliminate all seven enemies before time expires. While this is fun, it's made frustratingly difficult by the small targeting area combined with curvy tracks, and the fact that all the enemy cars are much slower than you, so you'll often pass them and not notice.

The Evolution mode is the meat of the game, and involves entering events (each with a list of accepted cars) to win money and buy more cars. Most of the races are pretty standard, with the occasional Duel, Golden Race (where the last-place racer is eliminated after each checkpoint, but the points aren't noted on the track so they feel just like really short regular races where you can get eliminated at strange points) and my mortal enemy, the Radar Race. In this "race", you simply must pass a radar checkpoint at a given speed or higher. The problem is, these points are usually after very tight turns, so that you'll have to execute a near-perfect drift to pass at the right speed. These can be frustrating.

My main issue was with the collisions. Some objects stop you dead, others don't seem to have any effect, and others send you into a little cut-scene-like spinout, which looks nice, but doesn't slow you down much, if at all. After a while this doesn't bother me as much, but it was definitely kind of strange seeing my car hit another car head-on and lose no speed, then hit some random pick-up truck that isn't even moving and stop dead.
My score: 8.0
This game is a lot of fun, but a few small issues that are frustrating or just annoying keep it from being all it could be.

Sound
The sound is the definition of "meh". The music tracks are techno-ish beats that loop frequently, and while none are really annoying, none are really catchy or even very exhilarating. As noted in every other review, all the cars make the same engine noise. This doesn't really bother me that much except with the Hummer and the very small cars, like the Beetle. They should have at least had different sounds for the huge cars and the smaller ones, so even if it wasn't realistic, it didn't just sound stupid. The voice that occasionally says things is kind of disturbing too. It reminds me of Michael Jackson's voice; It's too high to sound masculine, yet doesn't sound exactly feminine either. While it's not downright annoying, it does stand out quite a bit.
My Score: 6.0
It's just above average. The music's ok, the engine sounds bother me, and the voice is kind of creepy, but it doesn't do anything downright BAD, only not as good as it could have been with a little more tweaking.

Controls
You can remap the controls however you like. As in any control, to ANY BUTTON! This is awesome. While it doesn't use the touch screen for steering, I had no problems using the D-Pad for steering, and the controls work well for an arcadey racer. My only problem was that with the default setup it's easy to hit the Turbo button accidentally, and since you can't steer worth an old Backstreet Boys cd when the Turbo is blasting you forward, this can often just chuck you into a wall. Since you can change the controls to fit whatever you're used to, this isn't really a big problem. Each car also controls differently as well, and this is quite noticeable, which makes me happy.
My Score: 9.5
Being able to remap everything is great, and I have no problems with the way the game controls. I would have liked at least a touch-pad option, but oh well. It controls just fine with the D-Pad.

Overall
(Graphics) + (Gameplay x 2) + (Sound) + (Controls x 2) = 7.8
While the game is plenty of fun, the game could have used a little bit more time in the development oven. If it sells well, I'm sure the sequel will be great.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/29/04