Review: GTS World Racing
by Zain Shauk
August 12, 2008
Overview:
This racing game is easy to use and looks good, but isn’t too creative. Still, it will satisfy those with speed cravings as they tilt and twist themselves through Peru, Morocco and beyond.
Gameplay
GTS World Racing is a motion-based game that is very easy to understand. A “How to…” menu item even explains the controls, which can be adjusted for sensitivity and are very responsive and user-friendly (tilt forward to accelerate, back to break and to the sides for turning).
The game offers the standard selection of time trial (called “Championship” here) single race, cup and tour modes, which can all be adjusted for difficulty.
Unfortunately, there are only three cars to choose from, although each offers different speed and steering capabilities: a racing coupe, sports car and a formula one race car.
Review
While I’m not the biggest racing fanatic, I thought the controls for GTS were easier and more fun than those of other games in the App Store.
After adjusting the motion sensitivity, controlling the formula one car was especially exciting as I was able to quickly dart around and in front of opponents, a particularly great feeling when you’re sitting in a passenger seat during rush hour traffic.
Crashing into cars was often not realistic at all and sometimes simple side glances would bounce me completely off the course. But at other times the game would make up for it as I could approach a leading car from behind and continuously bump its rear fender without consequence (somehow it was entertaining, I don’t know why).
But despite the good graphics and controls, I thought GTS was missing something.
It was just too basic and I could see it getting boring very quickly. Actually, it did get boring very quickly.
Sure, there are 16 races in the cup mode and 64 in tour mode, but the first few are so easy and long that they’re boring. After that it does get harder, but there isn’t enough variation to make it exciting.
And the races are long—as many as seven laps—and there are no rewards for performance as campaigns go on. In fact, if you win a race, you still start off the next race in the last starting position.
There were also some user complaints about the lack of creativity in map scenery, although that didn’t bother me and the graphics seemed pleasant overall.
All in all, it looks like the developers here went for length over depth. For a handheld racing game, I don’t think that’s a formula for excellence. Still, its functionality is entertaining.
Summary
It looks and feels good, but doesn’t offer much depth.
