Read review by steef-online
Graphics: 9 ‧
Music: 8 ‧
Playability: 9 ‧
Overall: 9
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I experienced playing Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge as a second title in the series. In my eyes it was worse than Lotus 2 but eventually it grew on me and I appreciated the effort authors put into it. The game is different than its successor but still very, very good and in for me it also deserves maximum score.
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10/10 best Amiga Racer ever, but Lotus 2 & 3 a bit better
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My favourite racer of its type on the Amiga, possibly any system. Also famous for the confusing sequence that plays when you come last in a race (the driver gets out and digitised speech says 'I sex it')
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Good racing game for it's time. Nice rock tracks in the radio.
View all comments (23)
Probably the best in its category (outrun like racing) , including all machines.
Very well programmed (amiga gfx chipset well used), very smooth, very playable.
36 races (3 difficulty levels), a pratice mode, 2 players and 4 musics or good sfx : a great game with many options.
(10/10)
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Being a Lotus 2 veteran (got it as xmas present when it was new) I now took it up to play Lotus 1.
It was surprising how good and addictive game it was still after Lotus 2. While graphics are clearly a downer compared to the sequel, race for positions give a game a feel of its own and difficult tracks contribute to its goodness (easy tracks in comparison, are always boring).
I used emulator states only to save game and continue later and I always started from the beginning in the case of game over. Still, it felt a bit like cheating since apparently the game requires more patience and time resources if you have to always play it in one session.
The last track, "Antarctica", felt like impossible when I tried it for the first time. But I think it was 4th time when I managed to end up to the ninth position. I also had enough points that time to end up winning the whole cup (score 219). Curves on the last track are much tighter than on any other, but it still requires just a few times to learn how to drive through them.
It's difficult to say that Lotus 1 was better than 2 since the halved screen and crude graphics are such a big downer to me (just compare how much better winter race is on Lotus 2 compared to 1). But in any case, this first game is great as well.
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Favorite game
Drunk not drive !
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Number 1 racing game with great playability - smooth graphic engine - 2 player mode & compared to it's sequel with a championship mode & refueling stops ! Thank you shaun "trailblazer" southern ! I'll give this a 10/10 !
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A very impressive game, back in 1990
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If i had to go on a desert island ( with an amiga under the coconut tree) with only one of the lotus series it would be that one i would pick up.
The two others are fun for a while then get boring. With Lotus 1 i always want to come back for more. Fantastic gameplay.
View all comments (86)
An excellent game showing how Outrun really should have been done in terms of speed and graphics. If Outrun had been done with this sort of graphical attention to detail, it would have been a far better game.
Excellent racing game, 8/10
View all comments (53)
I had to give this one 10/10. Its perfect. This was the game that made me nag my mum for an Amiga; having said I wanted to stick with the C64 because of all the games. I have played this game longer than I have seen Star Wars; I spent years on this! It never gets old. I'm a huge fan and I have Andrew Morris's autograph to prove it.
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I never cared much for Outrun's gameplay, but Lotus does it right. Smooth, responsive, and great for 2 player action.
View all comments (42)
I liked this one quite a lot! It was the first Lotus I got for the Amiga after also owing it for the ZX Spectrum. Needless to say that this was miles ahead of the Spectrum version, with lush graphics, great sounds, an impressive sense of speed and a great playability. The only hindrance that I had with it was the fact that you couldn't play full screen. Why would I want to see a mechanic mending an Esprit when I was racing solo? But, in the end, this was a very nice game!
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The Lotus most fun for me.Btw the car was functioning brake lights,in the following Lotus the brake lights spoiled and they were not replaced,a bit shabby
View all comments (91)
Lotus redefined the whole racing genre on the Amiga. With tight control, excellent and smooth (!) graphics and a rather great soundtrack, Gremlin showed the rest of the world how a racing game should be.
The only downside: All cars are exactly the same. And, well, a few game modes are missing which were included in part 3.
View all comments (51)
Great 3d, nice sound and super smooth handling made this a joy to pick up anytime. The illusion of speed was brill too plus the variety in weather and tracks.
View all comments (524)
There's not a great deal in it but I think the third instalment just edges the original out as the best title in the series. It made a real impression back in 1990 though and rightly so - it's fast, well-designed and a real challenge (hence the name) but it's the two-player mode that's the star of the show. It's no slouch when you're flying (driving?) solo either, however, and the only real problem is that you only get to use half of the screen, giving it a claustrophobic feel. Thoroughly recommended, regardless of that.
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Good game!
8/10
View all comments (115)
Smooth racing action that blew me away when it was released, and blew away all the competition! Great speed, fun and very good challenge curve makes this one of the greats! Probably has something to do with my love affair with the Lotus cars....
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This is my favourite Amiga game of all time and the game that truely made me want an amiga when I played it for the first time during the xmas holidays in late 1990. I still play and complete it to this day and I know that my lotus lisence is in my parents attic somewhere. 32 super tracks and excellent graphics, music and gameplay make this a must. The best of the lotus series and best driving game on the amiga in my humble opinion. Only GREMLIN could do this!!!!!
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I'm not fan of the lotus serie but i have to admit it was great at the time.
View all comments (59)
Enjoyable game. I am not a real fan of racing in total but this one is imho the best of those games. Only minus I remembered while playing it is the fact that if you try to overtake another car and you do not make it a collision is like breaking. The computer cars on the other side can overtake even in the narrow passages without loosing speed. That's frustrating. All together a pretty good game.
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Up until the release of Lotus 1 there wasn't much else to play in the car racing genre than the rubbish conversions of Out Run and Chase HQ..
Lotus 1 was the first amiga race game that actually provided you with a great sense of speed, fast moving and super slick graphics. Like said before the difficulty level was spot on!
it's a very enjoyable game both in 1 and 2 player mode! Definitely the best racer of its generation.
Lotus 2 added some touches like full screen action in 1 player mode and the fantastic serial link option which allows you to play simultaneously with 3 friends. On the downside Lotus 2 was a race against time, instead of a race against opponents, and some of the tracks were too hard. Collisions had less of an impact on the car's speed... So in the end, no improvement on Lotus 1.
Lotus 3? Never played it more than twice.. Electricity beams? Chequered boost tracks? Oh come on!
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What a superb racer.
I bought this - full price, stuck it in my A500+'s floppy drive ..... And to my horror it guru'd
I got myself a Relokick 1.3 disk, all sorted - then I started to enjoy this superb example of an excellent racer on the Amiga - myself and my brother played this constantly, nearly completed it, but it was damn hard.
I recommend that everyone get this.
One thing to note: the budget release works fine with Kickstart 2.0 and 3.0 machines, it's just the original version that didn't like my A500+
9/10
View all comments (36)
Best arcade racing game on the Amiga. Fast, nice graphics, awesome music (title, track 1, track 3) and believable handling.
9/10
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It's so cool! Magnetic Fields (and Shaun Southern in particulary) are gods of racing games! Very challenging indeed - you can play it for weeks. The music is perfect!
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Great game. Watch out for the track that has the sign posts pointing the wrong way.
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Lotus 1 is still my favourite multi player race game even today..
But I may just be showing my age.
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Fast, frantic, challenging and great arcade fun. One of the best racing games ever, considering the time of it's release.
And yes, it's still fun to play.
View all comments (31)
The first Lotus is personally my least favourite of the series. But don't get me wrong ; it is excellent. Especially for being released in 1990. Lots of tracks, and it becomes quite challenging at some level.
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I think Lotus 2 is better in almost every aspect, though I missed the racing for position bit in the sequel. Because of that, this one is a better 2 player of the two.
View all comments (210)
Split screen action made the game quite fun played with a friend. Fast and smooth, with great collision detection.
View all comments (206)
IMHO, this is the best Lotus of the trilogy. Basically, cause it's a race-for-positions game, instead Lotus 2. Anyway, Jaguar XJ220 and Lamborghini American Challenge are slightly better.
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Brilliant game & probably the best of the series (even if I do have a soft spot for Lotus 2). Manys a Christmas holidays was spent with friends, family and cousins locked in 'winner stays on' championships with this. Graphics fine, update brilliant, music top but the excitement in 2 player unbeatable!
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Best Lotus Ever! Still play it with friends on split-mode! It is a game that never bore you even after years! Now im starting to convert my nephews to this, I hope to be able to play with them in a couple of day...
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This is what the Amiga really can do. What Out Run could have been. This one simply rules. Thank you Magnetic Fields!!!
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The original, and best for single player action. I loved this game more than 10 years ago, and it's still great now. Simple control and good playability whilst also offering a top notch challenge. The music was great on this too, although it would have been nice to be able to change tracks between races. The last race on the hardest section was incredibly hard, but that made it worth beating so much more. Pure class
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Simply the best racing game ever on a 16-bit format. Gremlin did themselves proud with this one. I remember going to the World of Commodore show in Earls Court, and Gremlin were previewing this before release. They had a competition where people would play, and the game was projected onto a huge screen, so that the cars were lifesize. Great in every way.
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Good game at the time & I liked the GFX and the music too
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It has the best tracks, best sense of speed, best music, best screeching wheels soundFX, and those two guys in the garage. The sequels were good, but this will always be the BEST!
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I love every episode of the Lotus trilogy!
And what about the intro music? I still remember it!
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I loved that one. Almost as much as I loved Nitro and Skidmarks. Very fun and addictive.
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Not a bad Lotus game.
View all comments (116)
Best of the Lotus trilogy.
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Seemed like having OutRun at home at the time!
(9/10)
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The first and best Lotus game, superior to all sequels & console variations (SNES Top Gear, Mega-CD Jaguar XJ220, Mega Drive Lotus). A really enjoyable racing game that made you proud to show off what your Amiga could do.
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A classic! And still highly playable! And what I like the most: it has 18 opponents when you play in 2-player mode (Gran Tourismo anyone?)
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My PC friends still cannot believe how AWESOME this game is even today!! My favourite out of all three Lotus games.
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Super! If you play one Amiga racing game, then it should be this. Unlike some other racers, it actually gives the impression of moving on the track, therefore it is a good challenge. I actually enjoyed this slightly more than Lotus II, so this gets my thumbs-up. Play it now...
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Easily the best racing game ever at the time of release, and in many ways better than the sequels. For 2 player racing it's unbeatable, and technically extremely impressive.
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This was the first game on any computer system where I was amazed by how good the road looked and felt to drive on since outrun. I remember sitting in my mates bedroom saying wow look at the road. The game itself was good fun on two player mode and is another must have for any Amiga fan.
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Basically this is Pitstop 2 for the Amiga! Great graphics, excellent sound effects (as heard in Super Cars) and the music was good too. Countless of hours spent with friends playing this in 2 player mode, simply the best racing game for the Amiga at the time.
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A golden oldie but Lotus 2 bettered it in every department. Until the sequel came out, this was the best sprite-based racer on Amiga.
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Man! This one was a real blast when it hit the screen! It kept me busy for ages. Truly a great racing game. One of the best on Amiga for sure!
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The most realistic one of the trilogy, since your car was really slown down when you hit the crash barrier! I also liked the fact that they managed to mix music and fx a bit in this game.
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Nice game, and I played it alot until the day I got my sticky paws on the sequel!
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Whilst not as good as Core's Jaguar XJ 220, this is still a very enjoyable game. Magnetic Fields did much better with Super Cars I & II. Check 'em out if you havn't done so already.
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Got this with my second-hand A500, was desperate to get out of plaster so I could play it properly. Perhaps not as good as Lotus 2, but still a fantastic ground-breaking racing game, and the first to recreate the feel of the OutRun arcade game with any quality on the home systems. The driver names were a laugh as well.
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A classic. Its sequel is even better.
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Great 2 player mode. Played this a lot.
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Excellent Racing Game! Playing with 2 players was awesome!.. Haven't had that much fun racing since Pitstop II (C64) This was Need For Speed on the Amiga!
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