"After playing GT3 this feels like racing around in Lego Land..."

The main reason I believe Gran Turismo 3 for the PS2 did so well was because of the stunning graphics. When it came down to gameplay, you were forced to race the same tracks repeatedly, and it got tiring fast. Now this game is practically the same thing, without all the exquisite graphics to flaunt. This results in tedious races on the same based tracks, without the eye-candy to hide the fact the game becomes monotonous.

Show some appreciation though, because at least the game maker’s decided to change the formula a little. The levels of race difficulty are still divided into four separate classes: beginners, middle, high speed and professional. Difficulty level won’t be an issue in this game, because once I hit the middle class levels, performing a race at least three times before I actually had a chance to compete was necessary. Don’t be discouraged if your coming in dead last for the first few tries on a new track, because sooner or later you’ll become accustomed to the track and its turns. The game maker’s also decided to drop the use of credits, and new cars and parts are also awarded as gold medals are won.

Ah, the cars. Of course, they’re all licensed cars. At the start of the game, you will have different cars from eight different companies, mostly only one per company. Most of them are pretty slow, and are vans. As you unlock cars, going to the selection screen will show a blinking sign on the names of new cars. Cars abilities, such as speed and handling, are measured by little squares. As you install more parts, more squares will be added indicating the car improved in a certain area. When in menus, a blinking name will indicate where a new car or part has been awarded.

As for design of the tracks, it’s overall disappointing. Most turns are all the same, and they’re all cornered at varying degrees. Very rarely will there be a track where a turn is actually round, most of the time its just straight lines turning now and then. The traditional road tracks are also accompanied with the rally races, and that’s to be expected. The only difference basically is the colour of the ground your racing on, which is now brown for rallies. In addition the handling loosens a little and the use of braking increases. This game unfortunately incorporates a typical cart racing feature when you leave the road. Whenever you go off the track even a slightest bit, the car will occasionally slow down to almost a stop. This effect isn’t always there, so you never know if you’ll get lucky enough and be able to maintain top speed when you stray off the track a little.

There is a massive amount of cars in this game, 46 in total. At first you only have around 15, but after winning first place in a race you unlock a new car or part upgrade for any car. Placing third in a race or higher will allow you to advance to the next track, but landing a second or third position won’t unlock anything but the next track. There isn’t a need to play the exact same track over again, but you will be racing on variations of the same tracks. It’s usually just a few different turns here and there, but basically everything else is the same. Each track has its own variation on each of the four difficulty levels.

At first, I was instantly turned off from the game because of the graphics. It felt like I was driving around in Lego Land, with all the jagged edges on the tracks and cars. When you hit another car, you literally bounce off of them. It will usually send you across the whole track and into another wall. They probably added this feature because collision detection with cars isn’t too impressive. I was once following two cars, who then were in the exact same position. Every second the game would display the different coloured cars, because they were on top of each other. It wasn’t until I actually hit one of them, that we both bounced to the side separating the two. After a while, you learn to understand and accept the ugly graphics, because it is a really good racing sim at heart, undoubtedly the best on the GBA.

Another difference from other racing sims like GT3 for the PS2 is that the controls have been radically simplified. Even though you still need to brake and accelerate, its remarkably simpler. There’s no need to plan out how your going to break when coming up to the next turn. You also won’t have to worry about coming into a turn from the outside, and accelerating as soon as possible when exiting a corner. All you have to do is brake during the turn, while still holding the gas. It’s incredibly easy, and very rarely will you have to take your finger off the accelerator while breaking. Sometimes for u-turns, you will spin out. This happens when you turn over 90 degrees one way, and the game forces you to actually spin around and lose time.

Everyone loves the sound of a roaring engine right? Well, here it sounds like a high-pitched whine. Okay, it’s not that bad, but it’s nothing revolutionary, as it could have been improved. Furthermore, when turning, a screeching tire sound accompanies it almost all the time. This sound is more annoying than beneficial to the gameplay. Faint background music is always playing, but its unlikely you will notice it.

A great idea for portable consoles is the password system. This way, you can always continue where you left off and also ask friends to tell you their passwords and help you advance in the tracks. However, someone wasn’t thinking straight when they created the password system for this particular game. There are a total of sixteen different characters, ranging from the complete alphabet to numbers and weird symbols. You must input every one of these by scrolling on each space until you reach the desired one. This can take quite a bit of time, and it should have been toned down to at least a maximum of twelve letters to input. Granted, there’s a lot of information that gets saved when you use the password system, but it’s still unforgivable for being that long.

One reason racing games never get old is because of the amount of replayability. Firstly, it will take a fair amount of time to unlock all the tracks in the game, let alone unlocking all the cars. Secondly, if you have a friend to play against it can also be fun challenging them. Just don’t expect the same fun you have when racing friends on games for the PS2, because there’s something about little cheap cars on a small screen that can’t measure up to beautiful graphics on a big screen TV.

Overall, it will probably take a while until you can get past the inferior graphics and realize it has a great amount of replayability. Racing games will never get old, mostly because of the multiplayer competition. If you’re a hardcore racing fan, buy this game now. You’ll have a blast trying to unlock all the cars and tracks, and also trying to beat your own times. Just a casual gamer? Then rent it, and see why most people love racing games so much.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/16/02, Updated 04/16/02