GBAtemp Recommends! Racing Gears Advance

[Hadrian]

GBAtemp Recommends! Racing Gears Advance
G.R. Issue #16 (GBA)


Its back! Sorry for the lateness. Welcome to the Sixteenth issue of GBAtemp Recommends! - a weekly magazine feature in which we share our favourite Game Boy Advance titles. The games we recommend may be top titles from the GBA library, a homebrew, or they may be sleeper hits that flew by the radar, but one thing's certain, they're all fantastic games that deserve your play time!

GBAtemp Recommends!

Racing Gears Advance

In my opinion the best handheld racer on the GBA. Viewed from a top down view, this is a pretty standard arcade combat racing title where you get to drive real licensed cars, racing against eight other drivers and drive through many real world locations.

The handling of the vehicles is spot on, its just how it should be and you never feel like the car is out of control like most other top down racers out there. The only mistakes that can be made are purely from the player themselves.

Graphically its a absolute treat. Amazing 2D work making it look almost like a 3D title. Vibrant colours and some really great detail in the backgrounds. The sound is everything you want from a racer, lively, tuneful and some very nice brrrrums brrruuums vrrrrroooooms.

This title is one of those "keepers", its challenging and always good for a quick race every now and again. The AI of the other drivers is good too, giving you a bit of a challenge and the added combat keeps the game interesting. Get four friends round with a GBA each and a cable and have some great fun racing and shooting the crap out of their cars.

There was to be a sequel for the DS but that seems to be vapourware as well as Orbital Media's Pirate Battles. I hope they come back one day to bring us some more joy.

Races from around the globe, set in 25 unique gigantic picturesque environments populated with hazards, jumps and shortcuts; 12 officially licensed supercars and 12 unique characters each with their own unique special abilities; up to four players can compete in a fast paced battle; win the race or collect track money to upgrade and customize your car with performance parts and tires; unlock eight offensive and defensive weapons to eliminate the competition with weapons like, homing missiles, flamethrowers and even cloaking technology; feature allows each characters' career to be saved; full digital sound with in-game audio tuner packed with 15 unique tracks created by Neil Voss of Tetrisphere fame.

Click for video footage:

1853 - Racing Gears Advance (Rising Sun)

1921 - Racing Gears Advance (TMR)


Genre: Top Down Racer
Developer: Orbital Media
Publisher: Orbital Media (NA) / Zoo Digital (Europe)
Dump Date: 29/12/2004
ROM Size: 128 Mbits

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Discuss

 

[Maz7006]

Its back! Hmmm looks like a great game as well

 

[dice]

It was a pretty decent game but I do feel that it's arrival was too late into the gba's cycle (too many alternative games out there). Had it have been released a year or so earlier it probably would have had more success.

 

[Smef]

This reminds me of micro machines for the original GB. I'll have to check this one out.

 

[Toni Plutonij]

It's really great game.....I had great times with it, and I'm having it on my M3 Perfect right now..

 

[shaunj66]

This is a great game. There was another good racer with 3D elements in it. Can't remember what it was though

 

[shakirmoledina]

ya i do remember me hooked on this game for a couple of days but if i am not mistaken, this is a short game
Not bad none the less

 

[Hadrian]

This is a great game. There was another good racer with 3D elements in it. Can't remember what it was though

Karnaaj Racing? It had a horrendous cover but was a fun racer.

Any more thoughts? Seems like people only wanna discuss the RPG style games.

 

[VatoLoco]

I love a good racer=) i just gave this a run and its pretty darn fun (even tho i couldn't place in the top 3 ...errr top 7).

...reminds me of T-Rally and OverTop for NeoGeo


edit: Hadrian, thanks for mentioning Karnaaj. I played it for an hour or so and its quite a good racer, too.

 

[Pizzaroo]

this is like, 100X better than Micro Machines DS.