Tantalus Interactive today announced its latest handheld offering, Trick Star, for Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance. Tantalus is one of the world’s foremost handheld game developers, with Trick Star following fresh on the heels of last year’s GBA hit Top Gear Rally. Established in 1994, Tantalus has released over twenty titles, including a string of high profile releases on Game Boy Advance. Top Gear Rally was published by Nintendo and was the recipient of several awards, including IGN’s prestigious ‘GBA Racing Game of the Year’ award for 2003.
Trick Star raises the bar higher still. "We feel this stands up as one of the most impressive racingstyle games ever to grace the Game Boy Advance," said Tantalus CEO Tom Crago. "We’ve designed this game internally and developed it in-house from the ground up. It’s the GBA title we all wanted to make." In terms of technology, Trick Star is certainly a step above even the highly lauded Top Gear Rally. It features a 3D bike and rider with real-time animation and a fully configurable stunt system that allows over 40 uniquely animated stunts to be linked together.
The game centers around the Tantalus-designed sport of ‘Trick Star Racing.’ Players choose from a selection of riders, and from a variety of different categories of tricked-out, one-wheeled motorized machines. The object of the game is to be the first across the line, but in the process players perform an array of tricks and stunts, jostle to acquire valuable pick-ups, and generally attempt to stay on track as a futuristic styled environment flies past them. Other features include real-time vehicle deformation, a host of different weather effects, and probably the most sophisticated racing AI system ever seen on a handheld device.
The game is presently at the pre-alpha stage of development, and will be shown to publishers for the first time at this year’s E3. Tantalus hopes to secure a publishing deal that will see the title in stores around summer 2004. "Through Top Gear Rally and through the work we’ve been doing with THQ, we feel we’ve built up a reputation as one of the best GBA developers in the world," said Crago. "Trick Star is the company’s strongest ever release, and we’re confident it will do very well."