Watch the video above. Just watch it. Pretty nifty-looking accelerometer-driven iPhone racing game, eh? But that's not the half of it.
The game is called Real Racing, and it's the work of Australian developer Firemint. Although that's it running on an iPhone, the company also has it running as a Symbian game on a Nokia N95.
Firemint boss Robert Murray demoed it to us today – the first time it's been shown to a journalist, apparently. And we are properly excited about the game, which is on course for a pre-Christmas release.
Why? The graphics are spiffing, and the tilt controls knock spots off other iPhone racing games so far.
However, it's the connected features around the core gameplay that made our jaw drop.
There'll be head-to-head multiplayer racing over the network or via wi-fi, which is nice. But you'll also be able to upload your best times to Firemint's web-based community, and even create mini-leagues of your friends.
What's more, the game will have spin-off Facebook and OpenSocial applications, letting you show off your prowess to friends on social networks.
Plus whenever you upload a lap, the replay of your performance is automatically converted into a video and slapped onto YouTube as well. Here's one of those that's been uploaded as part of the testing process:
Impressed yet? We were, hugely. Murray says Firemint is still deciding how to release the game. They could partner with a publisher, or go it alone on the App Store. Then again, it could potentially be a Nokia first-party title for N-Gage.
Either way, Firemint is aiming to get Real Racing out this year. If we were the big publishers and/or Nokia, we'd be beating a path to the developer's door, contract in hand.
For now, check out the video at the top of the story again, which we shot today at the GCDC show, and spend a bit of time on YouTube searching for 'Real Racing Replay' to see some other uploaded clips from Firemint.
In short: cor!
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Why isn't the steering wheel moving when the car is taking the turns. Anyway, I know Firemint are very good at racing games, and 3D games in general (they developed the 3D Madden titles for EA mobile), all I hope is that if they do come up with a n-gage version, they release a separate version for phones with hardware acceleration. Otherwise, I'm afraid it's going to end up being just another racing game ...
No one plays N-GAGE! iPhone users would gobble this up. This looks really impressive, and is right up there with Raging Thunder which comes out in less than a month .
@daab.orion, Actually, with retail transactions in more than 130 countries - I think it's safe to say that a LOT of people play N-Gage. But yeah go ahead and trash-talk - that'll really make people like you ^^'
