Review: Lotus Challenge (Microsoft Xbox)

I’m not sure about this, really I’m not. The original Lotus Challenge was released for the PS2 way back in the November of 2001 and to put it nicely, wasn’t exactly a contender for the console’s best racing game. Nearly 18 months on, with Xicat picking up the publishing duties from the sunlight-shy Virgin Interactive, the game is getting an Xbox release. Unfortunately, I can smell the scent of doom in the air.

The developers of the game, KuJu, had a wealth of historical car data to draw on and a massive chunk of the last 54 years of Lotus automotive history has been included to help stimulate your interest in the game. Of course, every racing game these days has to have a quirk to help separate it from the rest, and Lotus Challenge’s quirk is the aptly named ‘Challenge’ mode. Here, you must pass a series of gruelling tests, from a bizarre penalty shoot-out to delivering packages. A fair few races and other skill tests also litter the mode to give it a little longevity.

The prospect of this challenge mode was a real lip-smacker, so I headed for it first of all. After impressing the team owner with some strange control tests such as ‘drive alongside your teammate for 5 seconds, matching their speed’ and ‘powerslide around this corner’, I was sent into a race. This was duly completed without problems at the first attempt, so I was then told to hit the open road, so I could deliver an urgent package on time.

And this is where the first problems occur. When haring around the test track, the clumsily low camera angles aren’t really a problem. When you have to out-manoeuvre oncoming traffic and slip past opponents without denting your prized motor, they most certainly are. Also, the open road is strangely packed full of cars, pickup trucks and other commercial vehicles, but the landscape is as bare as it could possibly be for the most part, barring some PSOne style flat decorative power lines and trees.

Another thing that bugged me here was the handling of the cars. Sure, you can tell the difference between driving a Lotus from the 60’s and a Lotus from the 80’s, but things don’t improve much whatever you choose to drive. The cars swing around incredibly slowly, and when they do finally manage to change direction, it’s very hard to get them to go straight forwards again. When you are supposed to be bobbing and weaving through the traffic, this isn’t ideal. Add this to the almost comic 360-degree spin that occurs when your car hits something head-on, and you have a very poor show indeed.

If I were to be harsh, I would say that the developers could see flaws in the game engine, hence the stacks and stacks of different diversions in the game to pull your attention away from the obvious problems. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. Trouble with the basic control system of a game isn’t allayed by making us play the game for hours by introducing what are sometimes quite frankly infuriating mini-games like the penalty shoot-out. Graphical issues, sound problems and shoddy presentation can all be dealt with this way up to a point, but not below-par gameplay.

It may come as a surprise to some, but I don’t really like ripping games apart. I’d much rather sit here and say that every game I review is a good one. I mean, that’s why we buy games, isn’t it’ You play the game and it makes you feel’something. Something other than frustration, that is. Don’t get me wrong, Lotus Challenge is not all bad, in fact, the selection of vehicles on offer will be enough to make hardcore Lotus supporters and fans of high-performance cars in general at least interested in purchasing it. Also on the plus side, there is a great deal of game to play through and the front-end menu system is pretty slick and one of the funkiest looking that I’ve seen in a while.

So what do we have’ A game that doesn’t handle very well, has some serious graphical flaws (including a chunky framerate) and a soundtrack that while passable, isn’t amazing. All in all, I’ll save any more tears and say that Lotus Challenge is not what I’d expect from an Xbox driving game, especially after playing Project Gotham, Sega GT 2002 and even Racing Evoluzione.