GT Advance Championship Racing

"A good en big game"

GT Advance was one of the first racing games for the Game Boy Advance (GBA), and nobody really knew what to expect from the new Game Boy and it's games. But I had heard and read some positive news about the GBA and the games, so I bought it and I also bought this game with it, so this was my first game on the GBA.
Of course I was very happy to see all the possibilities on this new handheld, it all looked so much better than the Game Boy Color games and the sound and size of the games had also improved very much. Even though the cartridges are smaller (about half as small), the size of the data which can be stored on the cartridge has been improved greatly!
But now on to the game itself:

Graphics 9/10

The game looks really good, especially when you know that it was one of the first games for the GBA (it came out as one of the launch titles), but sometimes it's just a bit too dark and because the screen is already a bit dark by itself you sometimes can't really see where you have to go. The cars really look like 3D cars and the environment (the levels) also looks pretty nice.

Sound 7/10

It all sounds nice, but nothing special, I would prefer a bit more music and sound.

Gameplay 8/10

This game is really big, there are about 45 cars, which can be tuned too, from 8 manufacturers and about 32 courses, which is quite much. This game will keep you busy for quite a while, but the difficulty level is a bit strange: at first it's just too easy and some later courses are just too hard, and it really begins to get annoying when you just can't win that one course...
The other con is that when you get off the road or hit something you slow down way too much and then you'll get behind again, that just bugs me. But apart from these minor cons the game is actually quite good!

Replay 8/10

As mentioned above this game is big, very big, and it should keep you busy for quite a while, especially the later courses take some practice. And when you complete the game you can unlock two extra modes which add a lot a replay ability and of course there's also a two player mode, but I don't know much about this since I'm don't know anybody else who has this game :(

Overall 8/10

This is a really good racing game, with lots of cars, courses and extra's. Too bad for the minor cons, else this game would be perfect!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/11/02, Updated 01/11/02