Early Driving Games #14

Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge (1990)
By: Magnetic Fields Genre: Driving Players: 1-2 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Commodore Amiga
Also Available For: CD32, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum

To a small percentage of people, a 'Lotus' may be a distinctive type of flower, while many more associate the word with speedy little British sports cars. Mention it to an Amiga or Atari ST fan though, and their eyes will likely immediately well up as they fondly remember one of the most beloved of all games for their treasured 16-bit home micro, and probably one of the finest racing games outside the arcades at the time of its original release. This came courtesy of Messrs Southern and Morris who comprised British developer, Magnetic Fields, and it was an instant smash hit, even making the Amiga and ST themselves more desirable to anyone who wasn't lucky enough to already own one of them. Despite being a MegaDrive owner at the time, I remember being suitably impressed myself, and I have fond memories of playing this splendid game.

It's tough to get through the pack at the start...

I first played it on a friend's Amiga before eventually owning my own copy when a different friend gave me the trilogy box-set a few years later, and all three occupied my A600's disc 'slot' often. This first one is unsurprisingly the most basic and features just the one play mode, although it is for one or two players. The in-game action is actually presented in split-screen mode permanently with the bottom half occupied by some mechanics tinkering with another Esprit (someone else's?) in one-player mode, so the playfield is always pretty small. This solitary game mode does have three difficulty levels to choose from though, which helps to maintain interest. They are the uncreatively-named easy, medium, and hard levels which consist of 7, 10, 15 races respectively.

Going pretty well here - up to 13th after less than one lap!

The races in question are based in various countries around the world and are all circuit based. They don't really seem like circuits while playing actually, but you have to do a set number of laps around each one so I guess they must be! Each one features 20 racers, all of whom drive white Esprit's except for your red car which starts back in 20th place (astonishingly). So basically, each race consists of the player bravely battling his or her way through the entire field to finish in the best position possible, earning valuable points accordingly. It's not quite that easy though, obviously. In addition to the bumbling oafs behind the wheels (or controls) of all the pesky white cars who keep changing lanes at the last second, you also have a finite supply of fuel too.

Yes, you too can run out of fuel 10m from the finish line...

Back then, the need to stop in the pit-lane was a nice novelty, but the intervening time has revealed it to actually be a bit of a pain. The CPU cars don't need to stop, obviously, so the more time you spend faffing about there, the more places you'll lose, which will most likely be all of them. Plus, if you put slightly too little extra fuel in, you'll get what I got in the screenshot to the right here. Bah! There are also various obstacles in your way - increasingly so as the difficulty progresses - such as rocks and areas of roadworks (points for realism there I guess!) which will hamper your progress as much as the other cars and roadside objects/signposts, perhaps more so. You don't just bounce off stuff here, you see, so you'll actually need to manage your speed and/or gears (of which there are five) if you went for manual transmission.

An example of the impressive draw-distance...

This refueling tomfoolery as well as the cramped one-player viewpoint are about the only negatives here though. It has aged of course, but it's still a decent enough game. Presentation is great, including the music - you can choose which track (if any) you want to race to via an OutRun-stylee radio screen. The graphics and stage designs could be more varied but they were superb in their day and still look okay now. The courses are very hilly and the draw distance is quite impressive, and regardless of its few faults, I've still had fun playing it again after all these years. It can be frustrating and there are times you'll want to rage-quit (like if you crash off road and can't get back on the track because of the roadside objects), but this legendary racer is still pretty solid. That said, most will still choose one if its sequels over this original.

RKS Score: 7/10

Gameplay Video: here's a video of the whole game being played by one of the talented fellows at World of Longplays (check out their great channel here). Oh, and don't watch if you want to avoid spoilers!