Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge

The Good
The graphics were average for the game although the graphics tricks used does give you a feeling of speed. The music is probably the best thing about the game, there are some really good tunes from Ben Daglish that are worth the load time just to listen to them.

The Bad
The AI of the cars was very annoying, they would cut you up while going round corners making you crash into them and lose speed. Another thing about the AI would be that they seemed to slowly zig zag down the road. The only other annoying thing was when you hit any of the obstacles the car would steer into the next obstacle.

The Bottom Line
The gameplay is really quite straight forward. Fight your way up to first place and stay there for a few laps. The higher the finishing place, the higher the number of points scored and the higher up the league table you'll be.
The developer also included a fuel gauge so on certain tracks you've have to refuel your car. If you don't refuel your car and you run out of fuel then you'll finish last and of course that means no points.

It's a fairly decent racer with good music and average graphics. It has some annoying problems but if you can try an over look them then you'll find a game worth playing.

This game is a classic that everyone should have in their Atari collection.

The Good
This game is easily one of the best racing games ever seen on the Amstrad CPC.

Graphics are detailed and move well, circuits have small details to tell them apart, and the fact that sometimes you have to refuel in order to finish adds some extra tension and a drop of strategy into the mix. Hey, it even has a great two player mode.

The Bad
I used to play on a green monitor, therefore I was kinda shocked when I saw how monochromatic display is. It's understandable, of course, as the Amstrad needed to sacrifice colours in order to access to higher resolutions.

Still, the two main problems with the game are the "enemy" AI and the display.

Starting with the display, you are restricted to half of the screen, and although it works well enough the detection of obstacles is a bit awkward. Gremlin would solve the issue in Lotus 2, but this is the only entry in the series for the Amstrad.

About the AI, it's good enough, but too aggressive. Other cars like to block your advance, and this, together with the restricted field of vision, can make things very frustrating in certain spots.

The Bottom Line
The concept can look dated these days, but on its time this was one of the finest racing games ever produced. It's still very playable today, if you can ignore the dated looks.