Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 Review

Blog by Gemma @ Juicy Game Reviews / TheGebs24

“Marks, set, GO!” Those words were the start of something great in my childhood. The start of a time trial based race on Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 on the Amiga. I sat beside my friends as I watched them try to beat their times over and over. What an amazing part of my childhood this game was!

Now, it would be easy for me to sit here and tell you all about the game for this entirety of this review and don’t worry, we will certainly be discussing the game’s pulling power. What matters though, is the cultural impact on myself and my journey in to the world of Amiga. But first, what is Lotus Turbo Challenge 2? Put simply, we have a racing game that takes place across eight track settings. Unlike the first game, we do not race against other cars. The general idea is to race to the checkpoint within the allotted time. Seems simple right? It is. Simple and highly effective. The courses have a great variety of scenes and colour palettes too. We start nice and simple on The Forest Course which incorporates a bright blue sky, white puffy clouds, trees and rocks. If we are successful in beating the time we are granted access to the next course. The formula worked GREAT! Other track scenes included a City Course, Fog Course, Snow Course, Desert, Motorway, Marsh and finally a Storm course. Upon beating each track, we are rewarded with a password. Naturally this makes it easy to dip in and out of the game if you are unable to beat it in one sitting.

Forest Course:
The first race arguably the most iconic. Awash with a blue sky, trees, rocks and more twists and turns you can shake s tick at. When I think of Lotus Turbo Challenge 2, the Forest Course is what reigns in my mind.

City Course:
This feels like the perfect transition in to the second race. The City Race is set at night. The glow of the skyscrapers in the background and the brightly lit road really make for an exciting race. What’s more are the addition of tunnels to add that extra sense of grittiness. I also loved the little extra Gremlin advertisement boards that lined the road.

Fog Course:
We are now on to the third race. This is the Fog Race. It’s my last favourite as the colour palette is dim (naturally as we are in fog) and the difficulty is definitely increased here. Why? There are only three lanes, compared to the previous two tracks of four lanes. Your skills will be tested in this race.

Snow Course:
Finally, the road seems wider again on the Snow Race; albeit lane markers are missing. This always made me believe this race was more difficult but the more I played it as an adult, the more I realised that was in my head back then.The aesthetic is pretty detailed considering everything is covered in snow. Trees, old signs and billboards line either side of the road, snow falls in the foreground and mountains occupy the background. The challenge here felt like the terrain. There are a lot of smalls hills combined with heavy twists in the road. Beware or you will fail!

Lotus 2 - Night Time never looked so good

Lotus 2 - The iconic first race

Desert Course:
This is my second least favourite of the game. Again, the colour palette is dull as are the surroundings. Rocks and tumbleweed line the road which make for increased difficulty.

Motorway Course:
Aesthetically, this race is awesome. The road is split so you can view oncoming traffic on the opposite side. It’s a nice touch but it can be difficult to concentrate at times. Maybe the developers did this on purpose? Either way, the track looks great. The road has three lanes, tunnels, and at times the city can be seen in the background and additional obstacles line the way. So beware of large trailers ploughing horizontally across some of the races.

Marsh Course:
This is a three lane race with puddles everywhere. Packed with S Bends and some serious flooding, you’ll really have your reactions put to the test here.

Storm Course:
The lightning flickers throughout the race but thankfully we are back to four lanes. Had this have been a three lane race, I would of disliked this race. This is definitely the Mose atmospheric race of the game, and of course the final race. If you make it this far, you’ve done well. Once you beat the game, there is a congratulations screen with a picture of Andrew Morris and Shaun Southern; composers of the game. It’s a nice touch.

Why do I love Lotus Turbo Challenge 2?
What fascinated me as a little girl, were there car statistics darting the introduction. The attention to detail. The burnt Orange Elan SE and the Espirit Turbo SE, both had their own charm but I much preferred the latter as it pumped out a much higher speed, clocking a maximum of 163mph. I guess I was addicted to a higher speed back then!

So why was Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 so significant? It was one of my first introductions to racing games. Aside from Outrun, this felt like it was up there in one of the best racing games of the time. I felt captivated by the intro music (which was is still excellent today), I thought the graphics looks slick and the cars looked incredible. My friends and I used to take turns in racing which led us to lose hours of our school holidays. Needless to say, I was not very good at the game. The more time I ploughed in the better I got. The game became a fascination from there. Sure, it would have been nice to have more cars in the game but I said at the start of my review: Simple and highly effective. Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 knows what it is. The developers seemed to have a clear vision and executed it perfectly.

It is a fan favourite amongst many and when I think about the Amiga today, Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 is one of the fist games I think about.

This blog post was published in Computer Gazette.