There’s no getting around it. The Nintendo DS had a pretty poor launch window. It’s flagship release was a remake of a Nintendo 64 game, after all. Nintendo consoles in the past have had a poor go at racers, but Gameloft tried to fix that by offering up a launch game in Asphalt: Urban GT. The problem was that this title was originally made for the N-Gage, and this DS port was released a few weeks later. That’s definitely not going to score Asphalt any additional points. This is one of those titles where the reviews were truly mixed. Some critics hated it, and others liked it. You won’t find many middle of the road reviews here. That’s strange to me considering exactly how average this title is. It definitely filled the racing niche at the hardware launch, but it’s not amazing by any means. Let’s take a look.
Asphalt: Urban GT is a 3D car based racing game that uses several real world licenses for its vehicles. You’ll find the likes of Hummer, Volkswagen, Jaguar etc all included here. Of course they wanted to pad out the list of available cars so there are a lot of made up ones as well. I can’t fault them for including more content even if it’s based on imaginary manufacturers. This one steers more toward the pure arcade experience rather than a feature rich simulation, but Asphalt: Urban GT incorporates elements from both play styles. Obviously the goal here is to place high in various races across different sets of tracks. Along the way you earn money which lets you purchase new cars and even buy upgrades for them. That’s where the sim elements come into play.
The only issue I have in that regard is the fact that the sim elements seem kind of half hearted. Sure, you can purchase things like new engines and tires, but the upgrade feels minimal. Every boost helps in a racer like this, but sometimes the cash I spent yielded results that were barely noticeable. Worse yet actually earning cash takes more time than I had expected. In the end it felt like all that racing I was doing was wasting time and not working toward significant progress. I found that purchasing new vehicles was the better route to take. I just wish I knew that when I started otherwise I would have been more focused on actual progression. The sim elements aren’t as robust as we have come to expect in the genre, but they’re okay. The vehicle selection is also pretty decent.
Gameloft was obviously inspired by the likes of Need for Speed and Burnout when they designed the gameplay here. If you like either of those, or better yet both, then Asphalt: Urban GT might hold your attention. Avoiding obstacles and sliding around turns is the your main focus here, but you’re rewarded for things like narrowly avoiding other vehicles as well as obstacles. It makes little sense in terms of realism, but it’s mildly entertaining at least. You’ll also find various ramps in each course, and sometimes on the back of trucks themselves that you can use to send your car airborne. Aside from the change in camera perspective and cinematic angles there’s little benefit, but it’s kind of a neat idea. These novelties run out fairly quickly however and I couldn’t really be bothered to care after the first few races.
The racing engine here is decent, but not great. While there’s a great sense of speed the physics engine is a bit unwieldly. Sometimes you’ll smack into other vehicles and bounce off of them unrealistically, or spin out for who knows what reason. It makes the entire package feel unbalanced and displays a painful lack of polish. Turning is okay, but sliding around corners feels unnatural. There’s something seriously wrong with the momentum in this regard. I tested this over a variety of different types of terrain and the issue is constant. Maybe Gameloft should have taken inspiration from something like Ridge Racer or Daytona instead. Making sharp corners isn’t particularly rewarding, and I was surprised at how infrequently I actually needed to use the brakes. This is clearly an issue that could have, and should have been worked out with a little more time in the oven.
Courses are based on real world locations from all over the world. This includes the likes of Colombia, Miami Florida, Chernobyl, Hong Kong, Cuba, Paris, and Las Vegas. They chose well in regards to locations, but didn’t fully take advantage of the source material. The Las Vegas course in particular is a great example of this. I expected to see neon lights and busy streets but got little of that. Who cares about driving on the highway into Vegas? That’s not what I think of when I hear the name. The tracks all suffer one major issue and it’s that they’re all pretty boring in design. There’s not nearly enough environmental hazards, or any kind of character to them whatsoever. You’re simply driving laps on a mostly flat road with generally boring scenery. There was a lot of potential here but it was mostly squandered.
There is however a lot of content crammed into this package. You can choose to play this one strictly like an arcade racer. Select a car, then a map, and you’re off. No bells and whistles. Honestly that was my favorite way to play. There’s also a career mode of sorts, time trials, and more. One of the more interesting additions is ‘Cop Chase’ wherein you play as a police officer who must eliminate speeding cars from the map by highlighting them with your radar. It offers welcome change from simply racing, but the novelty wears off fairly fast. You also have the option to race together with up to four friends via wireless play. Unfortunately each player needs a copy of the game to participate. Boo. Even with more limited options download play would have been a superior choice. Good luck finding someone else who has a copy.
The graphics however are really impressive for the platform. Asphalt Urban GT runs at a silky smooth sixty frames per second which is amazing for a launch title for the Nintendo DS. What’s more is the polygon count is actually really high regardless of the level you play, and there are even some rudimentary lighting effects in place. It’s all very colorful to boot which makes a lot of the scenery quite easy on the eyes. Unfortunately there are a few issues. For starters pop-in can be an issue. It’s not Nintendo 64 levels bad, but it’s noticeable. Furthermore the changed camera angle whenever you go off of a ramp is distracting to say the least. It took me right out of the game each time I experienced it and often led to me wrecking. The soundtrack isn’t anything special with lots of original rock compositions, but it’s serviceable.
