Gumball 3000 Hands-on

Gumball 3000, a new racing game from Mforma and Blue Beck, had flown more or less under the radar until CTIA, where an Mforma representative gave us a surprise introduction. We can't make heads or tails of Gumball 3000's title, but our brief time with the game revealed some very promising driving action that should eventually speak for itself.

In Gumball 3000, you participate in a series of city-to-city races all over the United States. The introductory screen featured a US map with a bunch of legs on it, from which we selected the Las Vegas-to-Tucson option. From there, the game moved to a standard third-person racing perspective. Basically, you try to leave your opponents in the dust while collecting strange, gumball-shaped items to boost your score. In addition, we noticed that your car suffers damage from collisions, and if it's pummeled enough, it will eventually explode. A particularly draconian police officer beat us into submission during our test run, causing our car to blow up (and also causing valuable time to run off the clock).

So far, Gumball 3000 is looking like a fairly standard Series-60 racing game in the graphics department. Its frame rate and sprite models didn't seem distinctive, although the game did have some neat effects on the sides of the tracks, such as buildings in populated areas. Another interesting addition was the inclusion of intersections, which makes dodging cross traffic an imperative gameplay element.

Gumball 3000 will be available for download in the next few months. We'll bring you more details on the game as they become available.