Mobile software Monday: Astraware's GTS Racing Challenge for the Apple iPhone

It is good to take a break from a heavy workday and play a game or two. I have been playing Astraware's games on my Palm and Windows Mobile devices for years and they are my favorite mobile game developer. BTW, they just released Insaniquarium Deluxe for Pocket PCs that looks absolutely fantastic on the high resolution display of the HTC Touch Diamond. Astraware recently expanded their lineup with support for S60 devices and just launched their first iPhone game with GTS World Racing. I've been playing it for much of the weekend and posted several screenshots in my image gallery along with a YouTube video below.

	Image Gallery:GTS World Racing is a very fun game that lets you use the accelerometers to accelerate, decelerate, and turn.

The Apple iPhone is a very good mobile device and an excellent mobile gaming machine that can compete with the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP. The functionality that makes the iPhone even more interesting is the usage of accelerometers and a few of the games in the iPhone App Store are already available that take advantage of them. GTS World Racing also uses this technology to control the entire game. You tilt the iPhone forward for acceleration, but don't go too far forward or the red screen will tell you to slow down. You pull it back to brake or go backwards. Tilting the iPhone left or right steers your selected car too. Check out the video below to see a sample of my playing the game, as well as a quick look at the game on the HTC Touch Diamond.

You can select from 16 different countries to race in with 3 different types of cars and 4 difficult levels so there are plenty of options for racing on your iPhone. There are also 64 different tracks so you can enjoy quite a variety of road races on your iPhone. The gameplay is smooth and enjoyable, but it isn't yet on par with some of the racing games I play on my Sony PSP. The graphics and landscape appear to be better than what is seen on other mobile platforms (Palm and Windows Mobile) and they are pretty dang good for a mobile phone.

There are some soundtracks loaded by default, but you can actually turn off the sound from the game and listen to your own tunes stored on your iPhone. This is a cool feature for those that prefer to rock out to their own tunes and race.

You cannot change your view in the game or look behind you, but the game is pretty simple so there doesn't appear to be a real need for this type of functionality. GTS World Racing for the iPhone is priced at only US$7.99, which is a real bargain compared to the standard US$19.95 price of the Palm and Windows Mobile versions. There is no trial available, a limitation of the iPhone App Store, but the video should give you a good idea of the gameplay to help with your decision on whether to try it out or not.