With the recent release of Microquad being so big I thought I would review it's closest rival, GTS Racing by Astraware.
First impressions are good as the title screen shows an impressive looking car rotating in 3D.
You race a car of your choice from a list of three - a sports car, a coupe and a formula one car. The veiwpoint used is an out of car one, there is no option to play from inside, however considering the speed and style of play this is probably a good thing.
GTS came out earlier in the year and demonstrated a graphics technique which has since been used in Astraware's other latest hit, Hellfire and in the recent weeks Microquad. Basically the car and scenery graphics are pre-rendered and very nice looking, the track itself looks very flat.
At this stage of the review I feel that I should point out that GTS runs very quickly indeed. Definitely one to show off your Palm.
The sound in this game has not been forgotten about either. The cars rev, the tyres screech and everything sounds as it should, although I would recommend having an mp3 running in the background as there is no real variation in things.
Finally we come to the gameplay itself. GTS Racing is a lot of fun to play. There are 8 varied tracks to race on and a very helpful on-screen map to guide you. The only minor problem I have with GTS Racing are the control system options. There are two ways to control the game, buttons or grafitti. Now when this game was made 5 way pads were just entering the Palm world. As a result of this GTSR does not support it. In fact it does not allow button customisation at all, which is not so handy when considering the layout on the T3. However this is a minor point, the grafitti option does work very well, adding an analogue aspect for precision control.
Overall GTS Racing is a fairy straightforward racing game which plays very like Lotus Turbo Challenge on the Amiga, or maybe GT on the Gameboy Advance.
I like this one - it's good for showing off your palm with it's smooth graphics - good for a game when you want something that doesn't tax the mind.
You can get it here:
http://www.astraware.com/palm/default/gts/?skucode=0202-030-0030
