Hands on with System Rush: Evolution for N-Gage

Headlining Nokia's next generation line-up, System Rush: Evolution aims to blend fully three-dimensional graphics and furiously fast racing into a compelling experience for handsets. It's a formula that's worked for other formats, so how's it shaping up?

Pretty well. Shown in the company's booth at the recent Game Developers Conference, we had a chance to dabble with the game in its near complete state.

As the last free hacker in the world, System Rush: Evolution charges you with bringing down the government's data network to free your imprisoned pals. The government has contracted private corporations to weave a massive international network, meaning you'll have to work your way through several sub-networks. Piloting a special vehicle, you'll enter digital races with the goal of wearing down the network code.

The futuristic-style of racing served up by System Rush: Evolution demands skillful handling, a bit of battling, and pure speed, with each sub-network hosting a mix of three race types: Basic, Aerial, and Combat.

In Basic racing, your vehicle stays close to the ground. Acceleration is automatic, but you'll need to steer using the control stick. Boost pads on the track heighten your speed, though they make handling slightly harder.

More difficult are Aerial races that enable you to take flight by pressing up and down on the control stick. You can glide over obstacles for short periods of time, as well as grind on rails for added speed. We found maintaining our control over our vehicle pretty challenging, with a variety of obstacles forcing us to zip all over the screen. Thankfully, the pace in aerial races is a little slower, giving you a few extra seconds to weave your way past this clutter littering the raceway.

Lastly, the Combat races increase the tempo by pitting you against wave after wave of enemies. Unlike the race events, Combat keeps your vehicle in the foreground while you use your guns to destroy foes. A number of different power-ups are planned, but in the version we tried only extra boost and charge shots were available. Augmenting your vehicle's standard blaster, the latter send out a wave of electricity that disables other vehicles in your path.

Defeating enemy racers wasn't a problem at all – if anything the difficulty level seemed a little on the easy side.

Alongside the single-player story, System Rush: Evolution will pack in arcade and multiplayer modes. You'll be able to quickly jump into any race via arcade mode, which should help extend the single-player experience. Real-time races will be offered via Bluetooth, but sadly only ghost data and leaderboards are planned for N-Gage Arena.

That's a shame, but we think System Rush: Evolution ought still to prove satisfying without online racing, as the lengthy story mode and local multiplayer options look like providing plenty of play. While some last minute polish could certainly improve the game, System Rush: Evolution already seems near ready to boot up for its release later this year.