The Asphalt: Urban GT series of racing games, which Gameloft is currently making for mobile phones, the N-Gage, and the Nintendo DS, has two core strengths: fluid graphics that impart a sense of great speed, and scads of licensed vehicles. We've been fairly impressed with the versions of the game for the more advanced platforms, which really take advantage of the graphical horsepower of their respective machines, but it was unclear how Gameloft would manage to create a similar experience on less-powerful mobile phones that have a much smaller data footprint. Although the graphics have been scaled back considerably and the driving isn't as smooth, Asphalt: Urban GT 2D is still a lot of fun, due to its engaging bump-and-jump gameplay and the surprisingly large amount of content.
Unlike some driving games that have you racing everything from compacts to performance pickups, Asphalt: Urban GT focuses on a particular segment of the automotive games continuum: luxury "dream cars" that many people will never even see, let alone have a chance to drive. The cars run the gamut from the more-conventional Audi TT Roadster to the exceedingly rare Saleen S7 and Lamborghini Murcielago R-GT, and you can choose colors for all of them, which is a neat personalization option. You can either choose to participate in instant play mode, which drops you into the driver's seat right away in a randomly configured race, or you can work your way through the game's arcade mode. At the beginning of the arcade missions, you only have access to two cars and two basic tracks, but as you win races and make money, you'll unlock seven additional roadsters--each one faster and more maneuverable than the last--a new duel racing mode, and a bunch of festive race locales, like Vladivostok, Russia and Luxor, Egypt.
Asphalt: Urban GT preserves the series' vaguely subversive feel by tying its content-unlocking features to prize money, which you can earn by performing daring (and highly illegal!) in-race maneuvers and tricks. For example, flying past rival cars, catching air, and adroit bumping action will all garner you bonus cash, as will picking up dollar symbols, which also grant you a bonus modifier. The cops get in on the action too, as occasionally a radar indicator will appear onscreen, meaning that your car will be clocked in a few seconds. The higher your clocked speed, the more cash you'll earn. But if you accidentally touch the side of the road when you're under radar surveillance, you'll be slapped with a huge, multithousand-dollar fine instead.
The men in blue add an interesting angle to the action, because they let you bet big when you need the money. You can go for enormous speeds in radar mode and rack up large profits, but this also raises the risk of you sliding out of control around a corner and getting busted. On some of the later levels, the fuzz will even come after you in copters, which can shut down your engine with a Taser-like apparatus if you drive in a straight line for too long. Tricks are all well and good, but in order to bank any of the money you accrue, you must also finish a race in one of the top three positions out of eight. Alternately, if you're really in a betting mood, you can opt for a duel if you have enough money. Duel mode pits you against a rival in a straight-up competition for an adjustable bet, winner takes all. The competition really isn't a pushover, either, so it's not a good idea to simply bet the bank on a single race. In all, you'll have to balance your tactics carefully to advance through Asphalt in an expedient manner.
The driving gameplay in Asphalt isn't the best we've seen on mobile, but it generally does a great job of keeping things simple so you can concentrate on the constant, off-the-wall action. The game auto-accelerates for you at all times, and cornering is a relatively simple matter of holding down the direction keys for the right period of time. Hard corners are a little more challenging, but the sharp-corner buttons will keep you on the road with a little practice. As your cars get more expensive, they'll also accelerate more quickly off the line and handle better, but the effect feels pretty negligible overall. This is because winning races in Asphalt isn't necessarily a matter of pure driving skill; success has a lot more to do with managing your turbo boosts effectively. You start each race with five boosts, which are denoted by lightning bolts in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen. As you drive through the tracks, more nitro icons will be available if you're in need of a quick refill. Good Asphalt players will make use of their arcade driving tricks: turbo-ing past rough spots and situations, pushing opponents to the side of the road, and grabbing as many power-ups as they can along the way.
Asphalt: Urban GT's audiovisual aspects are competent and keep the action coming hot and heavy, at least on Series 60 Java handsets. The game's texturing can be on the ugly side--especially when you're going through tunnels, which are sickening, featureless tubes of alternating stripes--but it imparts a fairly convincing pseudo-3D experience, due to detailed vehicle sprites and nice background graphics. More importantly, it all runs pretty quickly, even if the car movement and animation is jerkier than it ought to be. Asphalt's sound is comparatively disappointing, consisting mostly of simple bleeps and bloops on the effects side, although they do help you to keep tabs on the action.
In the final analysis, Asphalt: Urban GT is a fun mobile racing game with a distinctly casual feel to it. The lack of any sort of two-player option is unfortunate, but if you like simple, fast-paced racing action, this game has more than enough cars, tracks, and gameplay modes to keep you occupied for a long time.
