---

Title: Lotus Turbo Challenge II
Developer: Gremlin
Year of Release:
No. Players: 1-2
Graphics: * * *
Control: * * * *
Sound: * * *
Genre: Racer

"This was what made me a fan of racing games!"

I can't begin to explain how cool it was to play this game again after so long; I played this for years! The funniest part though is seeing shades of my current F-Zero-GX madness in an infant stage. This game is fast, and in some respects could be called an older - much older - amiga style F-Zero; you need good timing, good hand-eye co-ordination and quick reflexes. I used to complete it almost every time, although the Fog level was always a tricky one, so narrow was the track with mud and hundreds of other cars! The last race, famously, is the Storm level where it really heats up!
The game itself though isn't great nowadays; the graphics are all cloned bitmap images, from rock clusters, bushes, logs and tanker trucks. But all of these things fly past and you shouldn't be looking at them anyway! Control is on the edge of control, especially for a racer, first mistake I made on the re-run was forgetting to shift up gear! Manual is the default, and to change gears you push the joystick forward or backward, which can be troubling!
Sound is quite amusing, a slightly wacky british voice over will herald checkpoints and wins, but the car engine is a drone and everything else is cloned.
A great game though, very addictive to try and complete in a oner! I would recommend it for any emulator fan out there. One tip: get to the city level and drive under the flat-bed trucks!