Lotus Turbo Challenge Games

This week on Super Adventures, I'm taking a trip back to the past... back to the early days of Super Adventures, when I thought it was acceptable to cover a bunch of old-school arcade-style sprite-based racing games in one article. I'd give them each three screenshots and write things like "Dodging cars is hard!" and "Hey, I got first place!" underneath.

I eventually learned my lesson and realised that these kinds of games weren't going to give me much to work with. You have a sprite of a car and you slide it left and right to get around the other cars and obstacles, while also trying to avoid flying off the track on the turns. There, I just described all of them.

But I could never resist showing off screenshots full of art, and it occurs to me that I never got around to covering the biggest stars in the genre. No Out Run, no Road Rash, not even Lotus 1-2-3. Uh, I mean Magnetic Fields' legendary racing trilogy, not the legendary spreadsheet software. Speaking of spreadsheets, did you know Lotus made a car called the Excel?

Anyway, I'm going to play some Lotus games and I'm going to show off all the artwork, and if I can find anything to write about them, well that's a bonus. Screenshots will be from the Amiga 500 versions unless specified otherwise, though I will have a look at some of the ports as well. These games made their way onto all kinds of systems, like the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, C64, PC... though not the NES or SNES for some reason. I've no idea why Nintendo got left out.

There was another game called Lotus Challenge released on the PS2 in 2001, but that's entirely unrelated so I won't be playing that one.

Manic Miner (ZX Spectrum)

Today I'm taking a brief look at classic platform game Manic Miner, prequel to the slightly more infamous Jet Set Willy, and still fairly notorious in its own right. It'll be 30 years old this year and has been ported across to a dozen systems so far, from the C64 and BBC Micro to the Game Boy Advance and Xbox 360, though I'll be playing the original ZX Spectrum release because it's the most genuine article.

Most of the time I'm playing these games blind, but I have to admit that I know a bit about this one already. Manic Miner and I go way back. Though I never did get past the level with those damn toilet monsters, so If I can just manage that then perhaps I'll feel like I've actually achieved something.

WARNING: The game over screen flashes like crazy. Do not stare directly at my inevitable game over screen gif. In fact, it's a ZX Spectrum game so it's probably best to not look at any of the screenshots at all.

Fantasy World Dizzy (ZX Spectrum)

Once Dizzy used to be a video game star. He was the Sonic the Hedgehog of the ZX Spectrum, the Master Chief of the Commodore 64! But time hasn't been kind to the adventurous egg and at last count there are only 839 people left in the world who would be willing to spend cash on a new Dizzy game. If last year's Dizzy Returns kickstarter is anything to go by anyway. £25,620 raised with a £350,000 goal, ouch.

Still, there's over a dozen games starring the pugilistic ovoid in the world already and I feel like trying one out, so I decided to do some research into which of them is generally considered by fans to be the very finest of the Dizzy series. Then I learned that research is actually really boring, so in the end I just went with the third one: Dizzy III - Fantasy World Dizzy.

Colony (ZX Spectrum)

Don't blame me for this one, it wasn't my idea. Looking at the title screen I suppose this is going to be about a brave ant trying to get food for his colony, while being hounded by a tiny robot wizard bug who likes harassing people with second-hand lightning from his deadly electric cigarettes.

This came out on the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, MSX, and Atari 8-bit computers, but I'm only playing it on the Speccy. My curiosity does have limits.

007 Games Part 3: Licence to Kill, The Spy Who Loved Me

Super AiG's Guide to Every (old) James Bond Game Ever, Volume 3

Aka. "To Kill Who Licenced the Spy Love"

James Bond week, day three. I'm seven years into the first decade of Bond games, and it's starting to become clear that the series was one of the true pioneers of the 'terrible movie tie-in' genre. Maybe GoldenEye actually was the first good Bond game. I kind of hope not as I've still got four days worth of these things to go, starting with...

007 Games Part 2: The Living Daylights, Live and Let Die

Super AiG's Guide to Every (old) James Bond Game Ever, Volume 2

Sadly not a real thing that actually exists.

James Bond week continues! In part one I took a brief look at the first four years of Bond games, from James Bond 007 on the Atari 2600 to Goldfinger on PC. I can't say any of them really impressed me, but hopefully that just means I've gotten past the worst of them now.

007 Games Part 1: James Bond, A View to a Kill, Goldfinger

Super AiG's Guide to Every (Old) James Bond Game Ever, Volume 1

This is what happens when I have Photoshop open when I'm bored.

It's another Super Adventures special event! Every day for the next week I'll be going through the first 10 years of the Bond game series, from James Bond 007 to The Duel, and hopefully everything in between. So if for whatever reason you don't like reading about James Bond, or looking at crap screenshots from ancient Atari and Commodore systems, I'll apologise now. Sorry about that.

Total Recall

Super Adventures in Games Based on the Original Total Recall Movie Starring Arnold Schwarzennegger.

I thought seeing as there's a Total Recall remake coming out, this'd be a great time to take a look at the game based on the original film. Seemed a sensible enough idea, until I found out that there was more than one of them. Four entirely different games in fact, on six different systems, all with the exact same name. But whatever, I'll just play all of them.

Total Recall (Amiga/Atari ST) (1990)

Amiga

Nice title screen but, uh, why is Arnie's head orbiting Mars? I'm sure his face wasn't tilted sideways in any of the posters.

Extreme (ZX Spectrum)

The humble rubber keyed ZX Spectrum home computer is 30 years old today, so I thought I'd put a Speccy game on to, I dunno, celebrate or whatever.

I haven't had much luck with Spectrum games so far, but this one has to be good, surely? It's got a naked dude with robot walker legs and a Stormtrooper helmet setting fire to shit with a flamethrower while flexing! You just don't see that kind of thing on title screens these days.

Ghostbusters (ZX Spectrum) - Guest Post

I've received a challenge!

Ghostbusters on the ZX Spectrum. One of the very first games I ever played, if not the first. Haven't played it in many, many years.

Can I play it start to finish without going completely crazy? We shall see!

Kikstart 2 (ZX Spectrum)

I'll be shocked if this doesn't end up involving bikes in some way.

Short Circuit (ZX Spectrum) - Guest Post

I know this one from when I owned it on cassette as a kid, and that's why I'm glad poor mecha-neko played it instead of me.

Because we all need a bit more input.

Dragon Ninja (ZX Spectrum)

Also known as Bad Dudes, and Bad Dudes vs Dragon Ninja. Based on the famous arcade game.

To be honest I'm only playing this because I saw the title screen and wanted an excuse to post it.

Jumping Jack (ZX Spectrum)

Okay I'm tired of playing random retro games I've never seen or heard of before, and that more often than not turn out to be crap. This week I'm taking a break...

GOOD RETRO GAME WEEK SPECIAL, day 1!

For one week only, I'm playing 12 games I used to love. But it's possible/likely that these games won't quite live up to my hazy childhood memories. Will any of them still hold up today?

Well I might as well start at the beginning. This was perhaps the first game I ever played, and it was ancient even then.

Star Wars (ZX Spectrum)

That's not a bad title screen at all for a ZX Spectrum game I think. Though the Death Star in the background looks more like a giant sinister R2D2 to me.

Batman (ZX Spectrum)

It took five minutes to load this, so I hope you appreciate the incredible sacrifices I make.

I have no idea why Batman is carrying a shield though. We're supposed to be collecting pieces of the broken Batmobile, so I suppose it could be a hubcap.

Nightbreed: The Action Game (ZX Spectrum)

To be honest I only loaded this up to see the title screen. I should probably turn it off now.

Aliens: The Computer Game (ZX Spectrum)

Chilling out for a bit with the Colonial Marines aboard the U.S.S. Sulaco.