Author Topic: REVIEWS: Asphalt: Urban GT  (Read 1632 times)

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Offline Bloodworth

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REVIEWS: Asphalt: Urban GT
« on: December 09, 2004, 05:43:15 AM »
The first racer on Nintendo DS doesn’t break any new ground, but turns out to be pretty satisfying.

Written: 12/09/2004

Distributed by Ubisoft, Asphalt: Urban GT is actually developed and published by Gameloft, which usually makes games for the mobile phone market. While it may not have the name recognition of Ridge Racer, Asphalt offers a well-rounded racing package.

Asphalt plays much like the Burnout series, without the spectacular crashes. Drifting around turns, riding close to traffic, and smashing through roadside objects, like beach chairs and phone booths, all increase your boost meter. Once the meter is full, you’ll gain a bottle of nitrous that you can use at any time, and you can hang on to as many as five boosts. Unlike Burnout, Asphalt has an appealing line of twenty-five licensed cars from manufacturers like Hummer, Volkswagen, TVR, Nissan, Lotus, and Lamborghini. You’ll start every race in last place and have to work your way up the pack; while the design choice may not be all that fair, fighting your way through the competition each race does keep you from getting bored too quickly.

While racing through traffic has its thrills, it can cause frustration as well. Running into a car from behind is like running into a brick wall; the cars you slam into rarely budge, leaving you stuck for a moment while you try to get out from behind them. Once in a while you and other drivers do cause “wrecks” which amounts to the traffic vehicles stopping in their tracks or turning sideways, creating an even wider obstacle for you to avoid.

Mixed in with the traffic are ramp trucks that let you gain air, but since they’re moving right along with everyone else, using them can be risky. If you make a jump right before a turn, you’ll fling yourself right into the invisible wall beside the track and lose time. So to be an advantage, you have to take jumps sparingly, waiting for points where trucks are on straight-aways with traffic you need to hop over.

Controls in Asphalt are smooth – as long as you choose the right button set up. Likely due to their mobile phone background, Gameloft seems to have missed the concept of using the shoulder buttons as gas and brake pedals, placing those functions on A and B and camera functions on L and R. The result feels a bit cumbersome for a game that encourages drifting so much. Thankfully, you are able to remap the controls in any way you see fit, so I quickly adopted the shoulder button setup I’ve grown used to on consoles, with gas on the right shoulder and brake on the left. After that, I was at home sliding around corners and skimming by traffic. The lack of analog control doesn’t seem to hurt much either. The other buttons are loaded up with some helpful functions and some useless ones, allowing you to change your view, look behind you, honk your horn, and turn your lights off and on.

Changing control setups can be a little troublesome though, because no matter what you do, the game doesn’t save your custom configuration. So every time you boot up, you need to go back to the controls and reset them. You can do it rather quickly, but that certainly doesn’t justify the problem.

Graphically, Asphalt gives you a good idea of what the Nintendo DS is capable of in terms of 3D. On the down side, textures are rather blocky and there is some noticeable pop-up in the distance. However, the frame rate is steady, and courses feel quite full thanks to numerous background objects and roads full of traffic. As you pass buses, cop cars, and semi-trucks, you’ll whiz by patio furniture, yachts, palm trees, airplanes, and tall buildings. What it comes down to is that while Asphalt may not have the spit-shined look of a modern console game, the undulating tracks and busy backgrounds provide an experience that feels like it’s on the same level.

Asphalt features nine tracks from urban settings around the world, including Paris, Hong Kong, New York, and Chernobyl. The track designs seem to fit in with well with the locales, and the effort was made to change up some of the traffic as well. One track even takes place on an oval speedway with stock cars for traffic. It’s kind of neat, but it is funny to watch a Hummer or VW Beetle pass by professional race cars. It usually takes more than a minute to complete each lap, putting full races in at about three or four minutes. The only real trouble with the track selection is that while nine is a good number of tracks, in the career mode, you’ll spend most of your time on the same three or four, which can get a bit repetitive. At one point, I had even forgotten about certain tracks because it had been so long since I’d raced on them.

There are several different modes to play. The game is split into a set of Arcade modes that you can just jump into and play and a career-based Evolution mode. On the Arcade side, there’s Road Challenge, Free Race, Time Attack, and Cop Chase. There’s also an Instant Play feature that just puts you randomly into any mode or track. The Road Challenges put you in a series of races with a particular type of car (4x4’s, compact cars, sports cars, etc.), and if you finish in the top three on each race, you’ll complete the current series and unlock the next. Free Race lets you choose any track and car you wish, while Time Attack has you going for the best lap time on a course. Cop Chase isn’t all that interesting, compared to similar modes in other games. You simply have a green target area in the middle of your screen, and criminal cars are shown with green boxes on them. Keep the box in the target area for a set amount of time to get a “lock” and then you can go down the road to “catch” the next car. If you get all seven cars in two minutes, you win.

The Evolution Mode is the real meat of the game, with a full career setup. You start with a qualifying race that nets you a Hummer H2. From there you’ll unlock races, cars, and cash, with occasional tuning sets thrown in for specific cars. Your eligibility for races is based on which cars you own, so you may need to race previous challenges multiple times, depending on how you spend your money. One nice trick to earn cash is to participate in a race that awards a car in addition to cash so that you can sell the extra vehicle at the dealer.

Races in Evolution mode vary as you progress. You’ll come across races that eliminate the last-place driver at checkpoints along the course, forcing you catch up to first place rather quickly. There are also races that require you to bet a sum of cash, but the weight of the matter is negated by the fact that the game only saves when you complete the race, so if you're losing a race, you can get your money back by restarting the system. Most of the time, the auto-save doesn't kick in until the end of a series, so the DS sleep mode can come in handy.

You can also go to the garage and tune-up your cars, although a lack of funds will have you making careful choices about which cars to focus on and exactly what you want to upgrade. Modifications can be made to the exhaust system, engine, brakes, suspension, etc., and if you’re willing to spend the money, you can even purchase a new paint job or a new body complete with spoilers and decals.

Asphalt also features a multiplayer mode, but since each player needs a copy of the game, we were unable to test it out. The manual does show options to play on a single course or series of courses or engage in a two-player Cop Chase.

Overall, Asphalt: Urban GT is a good start for racing games on the DS. Players who enjoy earning vehicles and the funds necessary to pimp them out should especially enjoy it. It will take you quite some time to complete everything, and it really does feel like a full-fledged console racer that you can take with you on the road.

Pros:
  • Smooth, intuitive control (once you get the button assignments where you like them)
  • Lively tracks and environments
  • A wide selection of licensed cars with noticeable control differences

    Cons:
  • Auto-save only kicks in at the end of a series of races or after a duel challenge (thank Nintendo for sleep mode)
  • Cars rarely budge when you plow into them

    Graphics: 8.0

       Even though many of the elements are clearly 2D, it’s rather astounding how much stuff is in the background and how many cars are on the road. Textures are blocky, but there is a lot of detail and variety in the game. Plus, while it’s hard to say just how detailed the car models may be, you really can’t see many polygon edges poking through.

    Sound: 7.5

       Asphalt uses exaggerated stereo effects to make you aware of cars coming up beside you even if you’re not using headphones. Even so, the game sounds worlds better with a good set of headphones – much more impressive than anything on the GBA. The music is a catchy mix of jazz-flavored and rock tunes, and you can switch between the limited number of songs whenever you like from the pause menu.

    Control: 8.0

       The default button placement is less than ideal for those who’ve grown accustomed to having the gas and brake pedals on separate fingers. This is only exaggerated by the fact that the game is incapable of saving any custom configuration you can come up with. Once you have it where you like it, the cars control like a dream and you have a good sense of control during drifts.

    Gameplay: 8.0

       Asphalt rarely feels difficult, despite the fact that you have to fight your way up from the bottom in each race. The course designs are fairly strong though, and there are a few tricky spots that will keep you fine-tuning your techniques.

    Lastability: 8.5

       There are a lot of challenges to complete, cars to buy, and customizations to make in Asphalt. For a handheld game especially, it should hold up well for quite some time.

    Final Score (Not an average): 8.0

       Asphalt: Urban GT lines up about equally with the Need for Speed series. Some good tracks, a nice selection of licensed cars to buy and customize, and responsive controls. Nothing you haven’t seen before, but a good racer nonetheless.  
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    Offline TheYoungerPlumber

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    RE: REVIEWS: Asphalt: Urban GT
    « Reply #1 on: December 09, 2004, 11:44:51 AM »
    This game actually seems pretty decent.  If I were into racing games I'd probably check this one out.
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