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The genre of racing games... Design a set of racetracks, put a bunch of fast cars on the asphalt and let them battle it out. It’s up to the guy with the joystick to steer his monster on wheels as fast as possible over the track, to cross the finish line in first place. This recipe is cooked many times in gaming history with various results. In the jumble of games in this genre Magnetic Fields unleashed Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge back in 1990. Starring, as the title suggests, the Lotus Esprit Turbo. This car is a turbo-charged evolution of the Esprit, originally designed in the mid-seventies.
How does this game compare to all other racing games in Amiga-land? When you fire Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge up, first a nice intro starts, showing you your soon to be owned race-monster in all its facets, including all the statistics you ever want to know. This is accompanied with a very nice music score, setting the mood for the game perfectly. When you know enough and you are ready to race, you tap the fire-button and you’ll move on to the option-screen.
In Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge there are a whopping 33 tracks to race on, including a practice track for the drivers who are not yet confident enough to battle it out on the racetrack for real. These tracks are divided among three difficulty levels, 7 tracks in easy mode, 10 tracks in medium mode and 15 tracks for the experts who are up for the hard mode. Every track is set in a different country and each has its own difficulties, ranging from sharp bends and hills to rocks, oil, water or other obstacles on the track.
Both manual gears and automatic gears are optional. What is also included with your Esprit is a nice stereo-set with 4 very good tracks to listen to while driving, but you can also choose to turn it off so you can enjoy the music of your engine while leaving your opponents eating your dust. Lotus can be played alone or with a friend. The game is played in split-screen mode showing a player in the top part of the screen and one at the bottom. In one-player mode the bottom half of the screen is filled with a pitcrew working very hard on a shiny Lotus.
Okay, it’s time to hit the road. In every race you are up against 19 other drivers. You’ll start at the back of the pack and after every race your position on the grid is determined by your result in the last race. When you finish first, you’ll start at the back of the grid and when you finish for example 5th, you’ll find yourself at place 15 at the beginning of the next race. You’ll have to finish in the top 10 every race to advance to the next track. In two-player mode one of the two human drivers will have to finish 10th or better. Every track has to be driven for a certain number of laps. You have to do that with a certain amount of fuel, which sometimes isn’t enough to finish, so in that case you’ll have to make a pitstop during the race to fill up your baby.
That’s about it option-wise, but how does Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge play? The first thing you’ll notice is the immense speed of the game. Everything goes very fast and very smooth, really giving you a sense of driving a fast car. The computer racers are not all premium drivers and some do not seem to be able to reach the throttle. But as you advance up the field your opponents will get better and better. When you hit another car or an object beside or on the road your car will slow down dramatically, giving your followers the chance to overtake, so good driving is essential!
The control of your car is spot-on. When you crash you really feel it’s your own fault and not because of bad controls of the game. The difficulty level is also perfect. You’ll win easily in the early races but the latter tracks will demand a lot more driving skills. The need to refuel is a very nice touch in the game, making it more exciting and it adds some strategy to the game. Will you come in for an early pitstop or will you try to squeeze as many laps out of your fuel tank to make a last minute splash and dash? Especially in two-player mode this is very exciting.
Graphically Lotus is a masterpiece. Every object has a sense of detail and you can see that Magnetic Fields have really drawn all objects and cars many times from small to big or from ‘far away’ to ‘close by’. This makes the scrolling very smooth. The backgrounds are simple yet detailed and the colours in the game are nicely chosen. The different heights of the track are also nicely done, often leaving you wandering what’s behind the next steep hill. The sound FX in the game are nice and the different music tracks are brilliant, setting just the right mood while driving.
All in all, Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge is an absolute winner. Nice graphics and sounds and awesome playability make this racer challenging and great fun! In one-player mode this game is great and in two player mode this is even more fun. Lotus stands high up in the list of arcade-racers, maybe even on top!
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The graphics in Lotus are top-notch. The in-game graphics are very detailed and colourful and the brilliant intro-graphics have to be seen to be believed. The game-animation is incredibly fast and smooth.
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The in-game sounds are very decent and the music-tracks are very good and fit the mood of the game perfectly.
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This is another strong point of the game. The control of the car is very good and the difficulty level of the game is spot-on. The different tracks and obstacles make the variation in the game very well balanced and challenging. The addition of the fuel pitstops makes the game even more exciting and fun.
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| As arcade-racers come Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge is an absolute cracker. The game oozes quality and style, both graphically and sonically. The gameplay is very good and challenging in one-player mode, but with a friend this game is ultimately addictive, keeping you glued to the computer-screen for hours on end. Stop reading and start playing… now! |
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