Go back to Lotus: The Ultimate Challenge

Written by: Stoo
Date posted: July 3, 2024

I stumbled across the Lotus series when watching a review of the first game on Chinnyvision, (basically the one youtuber I have any time for). It never got a PC release, but the second sequel did so I thought to myself, Rik must have written about that at some point. Returning here to check, I was not disappointed!

So here are my own thoughts. The series is clearly inspired by Outrun, with the same sort of pseudo-3D graphics. It’s a more primitive approach than the 3D which by 1992 was fast becoming standard in games like Test Drive 3 and F1GP. You can’t, for example, spin around and see the track backwards. Also its idea of a cliff to one side of the track is just an endless row of big rocks. Still, it’s colourful and does effectively convey a real sense of speed, as you hurtle down some highway or desert track.

Back in the original, in single player mode you’re restricted the same half-screen view that you get in two player. The bottom half is filled with an image of some mechanics tinkering around with a lotus in the garage. It seems a bit off-putting to have such a constricted view of the world. Like the game is saying “well there’d be something here if you had any friends around today, loser!”

Then again, as Rik points out, Ultimate Challenge’s full-screen view does mean the engine’s limitations are more exposed. It’s particularly apparent whenever you’re going downhill. You have the sky at the top, the track at the bottom, but in between a wide band of flat colour representing ground where the game clearly isn’t drawing anything. I do also feel at other times there’s more space given over to the sky than you need.

I’ll go ahead and admit I only tried a few tournaments. You can do time trials if you like, or an actual race against other cars. The more wide and open tracks I found are easy enough even for a cack-handed racer like myself. When doing races on more narrow twisty tracks, I was in more trouble, especially when trying to overtake. I often found myself in about 12th place, constantly bouncing off a mobile wall made from the next three cars. By the time I made it past them, I had no hope of catching the leaders.

Speaking of obstructions, one track is set up like a motorway with roadworks and I’m pretty sure I saw the computer cars sail right through fences and signs. No idea if that’s a bug, or just a really cheap way of giving them a boost. Another advantage they get, I think, is lack of need for pit stops. You on the other hand have to decide when to make refueland when to take gamble on having enough left to get to the finish line. This little bit of strategising is a welcome feature, but it should apply to your opponents also!

Rik states that the original is superior to this one. I think the half-screen letterbox would annoy me after a while, but I’ve not actually played it and Rik is a far better judge of racing in general than I. So really I’m just throwing in some comments from a very casual perspective. I’ve made criticisms of my own, but I did find this one did have some immediate appeal. It takes that sort of arcade-conversion excitement you’d associate with the 16-bit systems and brings I to the dorky world of early-90s MS-DOS. I can see myself revisiting it occasionally, at least.