Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge

Copyright : Gremlin Graphics | Reviewed by : Ritchardo

Feel the thrill of accelerating from 0 to 60 in 4.7 seconds as you race head to head over hills, through valleys and around vicious bends gripping the wheel of your Lotus Esprit Turbo

One or two player car racing action from Gremlin

Graphics

Initially off putting, chances are you wont like the graphics to Lotus Turbo Esprit Challenge until things start moving. Only then do the mode 1 graphics really come into their own and do you begin to appreciate the detail that has been included. Up to that point you will dislike the limited colour scheme (a necessary sacrifice for mode 1) and the extremely narrow game window that appears to give you very little in the way of a view.

The reason for this narrow viewpoint becomes abundantly clear when a second person joins you for a game and the large picture of your car that takes up the bottom half of the screen is replaced by your opponent?s view and you have the best two player racer on the Amstrad.

What this game manages to capture that others have failed is speed. It?s fully believable that you?re driving a car as fast as lotus as you hurtle around the track at breakneck speed in one player mode and although the scrolling is a little jerkier when two players are taking part, it?s still more than playable.

Collision detection is spot on as well and is absolutely vital in this game where overtaking is more of an art form than sheer blind luck.

Sound

The title screen features a fairly unremarkable title tune that can be a little irritating after prolonged exposure but these are more than made up for by some pretty excellent sound effects which not only capture the roar of your engines but also the screech of tyres as you overshoot bends and as such are actually useful during the course of the game to give you pointers as to were or when you should be applying the brakes. The sounds are not only useful in this instance but also realistic and it?s hard to find fault with them.

Gameplay

With the speed that this game goes at and it?s almost perfect collision detection, Lotus can?t help but be a good racing game. What sets it above this though and makes it a great racing game is the level of skill that you?ll need to conquer all of the 32 circuits that the game has.

Split over three difficulty levels, the courses are divided into three seasons of seven easy races, ten intermediate and fifteen difficult tracks that will provide a long term challenge for even the best game racers. The tracks provide a perfect difficulty curve and before too long you?ll find yourself completely addicted to trying to beat your previous best attempts.

Pit stops have been included and you will need to make use of them as some of the courses are just that little bit longer than you have enough fuel to conquer. This along with fiendish s-bends, blind corners and all sorts of track manipulation makes this game all the more addictive.

The real joy of Lotus comes though with the art of overtaking. Unlike most driving games where you can speed up and overtake your opponents on the straight and they will kindly move to the side and let you pass, in Lotus your 15 computer opponents (or 14 in two player mode) are as devious and determined to win as yourself. Don?t expect any easy passages and instead you?ll be dog fighting to get past those cars in front of you. As with real life racing the best opportunity to pass and be passed is on the corners and you?ll soon lose count of how many times you lose position by not hitting the corner perfectly.

You can choose to use manual or automatic gears and also whether to manually accelerate or not which is a bit of an unusual option but allows you to focus on your movements more.

One slight grumble is that no matter what you do, it?s impossible to total your car which does reduce the realism factor that the rest of the game tries so hard to build this. Another problem stems from the narrow view, as mentioned previously, which does make it difficult sometimes to know what is going on, especially if you?re taking a corner at the top of a hill? In saying that, the positives more than outweigh the negatives and I wouldn?t let them put you off too much.

One of the best driving game available on the CPC it might not look that special in terms of its screenshots but after a few short attempts, you?ll be hooked on what is an absolutely classic and essential addition to anyone?s Amstrad collection.