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I'm sure a lot of you remember Astraware's GTS Racing Challenge, which came out a few years ago. It was meant to reproduce the experience of the purely arcade-flavored racing games found in the arcades and on consoles. Arguably the biggest influence on the game is Sega's Outrun, and similar to that title, the game featured simple physics, long, twisting tracks, and an emphasis on visual stimulation. The original Outrun, after all, was a product a 1980s game design, a time when racing games were purely meant to be fun and didn't aim at realism.

When I first saw the screens for GTS World Racing, I honestly thought the game had been repackaged or merely updated. While the splash screens and example screenshots feature the same red and white Dodge Viper lookalike, the new version of GTS features several technical and game play enhancements. (In addition to the "sports" and "coupe" racing modes, GTS now offers an Indycar-type vehicle). Also, the game's graphics have been enhanced somewhat, and while the visuals aren't jaw-dropping, they're among the best in the current crop of racing games.

The real changes, however, are in the car handling. Don't expect to just hit left or right through a curve without having to worry about sliding off the track. In GTS World Racing, it's not hard at all to have your car spin out. It appears that Astraware tried to add a bit of realism to the controls while retaining an arcade feel. It takes some getting used to. I spent my first race continually running off the track at almost every curve. While the "cruise control" feature is nice, the game unfortunately does not have an auto-braking feature. Since the new driving dynamics require you to slow down when taking curves, the cruise control feature really isn't useful unless the game also helps you slow down. Otherwise, you'll have to keep turning the cruise control back on again. I ended up turning the cruise off and just using the brakes. This is really a better way of playing the game anyway, in my opinion: you end up interacting with your car a lot more, and it's far more realistic.

GTS World Racing is a worthy sequel, although the revamped controls require a bit more work than you might expect from an arcade racing game. It's really hard to get workable controls on an arcade game written for the Pocket PC.

Title: GTS World Racing	Developer: Astraware
Genre: Classic Arcade	Demo: Yes
Platform: Pocket PC 2003+	Price: $19.95
Discuss this game	Rating (of 4): 3.4