Come release of the Nintendo DS (which is in fact only 2 days away now, get excited people) there will be two racing games in which you can choose from. One will be Ridge Racer the other will be Asphalt: Urban GT. Asphalt was originally a game designed for the Nokia N-Gage, but as Ubisoft are very clever people, they saw the potential of the DS and clearly thought that not only would it be pa smart move for them but also a great experience for DS users. Thankfully also the DS version does seem to output a better graphical display than the N-Gage's.

 

Asphalt is a very arcade style based game in which there will be a nice amount of real life motors for you to choose from. It could also be seen as a Need For Speed type game where it will take you racing around the streets while trying to avoiding the plentiful supply of on-coming traffic. The game is fast paced which runs at a nice smooth 60 fps; this is one of few games so far to actually run at this steady pace, the other being Spider Man 2. This will give the gamer a great impression of speed which you don't really see alot in handheld games.

Usually a control system for a racing game would involve two buttons, accelerate and brake, of which are pretty close to each other to allow the player to lightly lift their finger off of the accelerate button and depress the brake. Well unlike most control systems for racing games the two buttons are, this time, opposite each other (A and Y). This means that may have to lift your finger up for once and not be lazy as usual. A little different but this doesn't cause too much of a problem while racing.

 

All the action in this racing game takes place on the top screen with the lower screen showing off the map of the city in which you will be racing around in (take care not to look at the map too much, you could crash y'kno). Unlike the Ridge Racer control style which uses a movable wheel on the bottom screen, this game uses the standard D-Pad which may come as a relief to some who didn't like the idea of RR's controls. Camera angle wise, there are multiple options including a very fast and scary cockpit view.

Obviously Asphalt and Ridge Racer will be facing off come release day and it will be interesting to see which will win, we will soon see. Innovative steering with Ridge or traditional arcade style racing with Asphalt? it's your choice.