Last week, I went to go meet up with Colin Taibi, my brother and our pal Steve. Colin told me he was bringing his GBA & games and I was really anxious to try Dodgeball Fighters, which Colin recently acquired. However, when I hooked up with him, he was like “play this” and tossed me his import copy of Advance GTA.

“But I have played this, at E3!” I protested.

“I’ve played it too,” Colin scoffed, “for weeks and weeks at my house!”

And that was that. Of course, after playing a track or two I had forgotten all about Dodgeball and realized I hadn’t played enough of Advance GTA when I had the chance at E3. (After he had played a bit of it in LA, Rick Powers rushed to his laptop and wrote his impressions immediately – I know why now!)

Advance GTA is an amazing launch title for GBA. It looks great, it plays great, it’s everything a console racer should be and because of this, it offers a lot more than what people have come to expect from a handheld game. The bar has been raised folks, and first gen GBA games like Tony Hawk and Advance GTA let us know we’re in for a heck of a ride.

Advance GTA has been likened to Gran Turismo and it does have elements of the impressive racer. Namely in the selection of actual licensed cars (Toyota, Honda, Subaru and others) you can select, each with varying attributes. The graphics are also done in a similar style as Gran Turismo. However, I found that overall, Advance GTA to be a lot simpler and immediately accessible than the acclaimed PSX racer. That’s a good thing, because racing is the best part of any racing game.

Controls are simple and responsive, A is accelerate, B is brake and shoulder buttons are used for shifting gears. You’ll need to get pretty good at the power sliding technique; many of the tracks require you to make sharp turns intelligently. After getting to know the track you’re on, it becomes fairly easy to pull ahead and win. If you take a turn to early or two fast however, you will spin out of control, making each lap anything but a mindless endeavor of repeated, alternating power slides.

Another cool aspect is the upgrades you earn as you progress victoriously. I didn’t discover this option until after I won several races and then found it hard to progress. By this point, I could upgrade my engine, suspension, body weight –just about everything. By the time I hit the racetrack again, my ride was all souped up and ready to start resume its victory laps.

I was able to beat beginner’s circuit and experienced a variety of tracks; off-road, highway, city – all well represented and each track trickier than the last. Even when I had to turn off the game and (gasp!) hang out with my friends, I was able to power back up in later dull moments and resume right where I had left off. No saving needed!

One gripe I have is as each new track loads or you win the race, there is text that is very, very small and almost unreadable. This was imported, but the text was still in English. Teeny-tiny text pops up when you finish a race: “this race is all finish.” This cracked me up but I was only able to make it out because it stays on screen for some time. Maybe that’s why Colin got a GB Advance Light & Magnifier.

Music wise, Advance GTA has both simple tunes for set up and more structured tunes for in race and both types are enjoyable. One of the more “urgent” sounding songs played in a later track is still stuck in my head (as is the mental image of me spinning out time after time, at the very last leg of a race). Some audio tracks have a very old school sound to them, one menu screen’s music reminded of the Rare’s 8 bit RC Pro Am series, for it’s simple grooviness I guess. I want to say the gameplay is a bit reminiscent to RC Pro Am too, but I think it’s more because it’s a solid racer with loads of simple & sweet gameplay. Best of all, despite the old school nature of how Advance GTA plays, it has new school aesthetics thanks to the power of the GBA.

This brings me to another point I feel I should mention –I became so engrossed in this game, as my friends were walking around the room doing other stuff, I flinched or reflexively paused the game as they walked in front of where I was sitting. Then I’d remember I was playing a handheld and no one could walk in front of my screen. Kinda bizarre—but again, possibly caused by the game looking & playing better than anything on a handheld in some time. But hey, thank goodness it’s portable! Advance GTA is the kind of game I want to take everywhere!

I plan on buying it as soon as I can afford it and will have a full review on PGC ASAP. As I finish writing these impressions, I have just read THQ is shipping Advance GTA to US stores now. Racing fans with import GBAs, here’s your green light. For everyone else, Advance GTA may be just the launch title you’ll want to take home with your GBA.