GT Advance 3: Pro Concept Racing

Put away the mudflaps and kick the strung-out British navigator off the passenger seat?GT Advance has gone back to, erm, GT racing.

How many games can you make with the same basic engine before the series starts getting a little threadbare? The answer, judging from the latest GT Advance, is around three: Pro Concept Racing is essentially an add-on pack for the original with four dozen new tracks, 97 cars to unlock, and that sort of urgent Euro-beat music that apparently must be included in every racing game, no matter who it's from.

As always, GT Advance 3 uses a Mode 7?style 3D engine for the races?and, once again, this engine is the game's biggest asset and its most dire fault. The graphics, as you'd expect by now, run beautifully, never skipping or stuttering, and the feeling you get when executing that perfect U-turn powerslide past two cars is among the best any developer's managed on a portable. Despite this sense of mini-exhilaration, though, there's no getting around the fact that the tracks are still as flat as a pancake. It's very hard to tell (especially in the street races) what's track and what's impassible barrier, and the single-plane raceways make every match seem like the same race over and over again.

If you've played the original to death and have an insatiable desire for new tracks, then by all means buy GT Advance 3. Otherwise, you're probably better off finding one of the first two games for cheap. It's not a bad game; it's just one that's been implemented perfectly well twice before.

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