Review: Lotus Challenge (GameCube)

In this review, we go for a great race in the GameCube game Lotus Challenge. We find out how well this racing game plays.

This game was released in 2004. It is a port from another system.

There really isn’t a story leading up to this game. You just get thrown to a menu and get a choice of a couple of different modes. As the title suggests, you are racing against opponents in Lotus vehicles.

The modes in this game vary a bit. You have the Championship mode which allows you to pick from a number of different classes. After that, you can race in those championships and unlock cars for single race mode. There’s no real progression either, just pick a championship, a car, and a few other options and go.

Another mode is Challenge mode. This is where the game opens up into a linear story mode. There’s a host of different challenges along the way. The first challenges you encounter are stunt challenges. These challenges involve you trying to perform different manoeuvre’s. This can include acceleration, braking, cornering, power sliding, and a few other manoeuvre’s that you don’t actually pull off in races (such as reverse 180 spin).

Another kind of challenge are point A to point B races. All it is are races between one point and another with different objectives in mind. In some races, you are actually trying to catch up to a lead vehicle or beating an opponent with a lead. In others, you are simply trying to make it to a destination within an allotted time.

Mixed in are race challenges much like what you see in the Championship races. Your objective is to come in first place. Anything else and you fail the challenge.

Finally, there are what I like to refer to as miscellaneous challenges. This just ranges in weird tasks that seemingly break the monotony of standard races. Sometimes, though, these challenges are just plain broken. So, if you are stuck on one of these irritating challenges, I’ll just offer hints right out of the gate in how to beat some of them:

In car soccer/football, you cannot score with a single run to the ball. You have to fake several shots in order to get your opponent to move to one side. Once you accomplish this, take a shot to the other side. your opponent won’t ave time to go all the way across. To fake a shot, drive up to the side of the ball, but don’t pass it (this will reset everything). Reverse back and keep faking shots so the opponent keeps moving in one direction.

In the skid challenge, use reverse and turn. It’s backwards, but at least the skidding will consistently count.

In the movie set challenge, make sure you park at the flags at the end of the boat, not before. Otherwise, you’ll fail the challenge by running out of time. The instructions are not clear on that aspect.

Otherwise, your races will simply consist of a series of opponents. Either cross the finish line first or place high enough to get enough cumulative championship points to win the series.

This game is a simulation racer, so you have to pay attention to how you tackle turns. For sharper turns, you need to slow down enough beforehand on the outside part of the track. While turning, try and get as close to the inside as possible. On exit, you just allow the car to drift back out. The sooner you can safely accelerate, the better exit speed you can attain and pull away from the pack.

One thing to keep in mind about this racing game is the fact that there are tracks with hills and bumps. For obvious reasons, you can’t turn while in mid air, so you’ll have top either calculate what is a good angle or brake enough so you can get as much friction leading into the turn after. This is especially true for dogfight arena that is supposed to be a modified go-kart race track.

A complaint I do hear about this game is the fact that it’s a very hard game. On default settings, it’s actually not that bad. A few challenges are very irritating, but the races themselves are very winnable. This probably boils down to whether or not you have experience in simulated racing games. If you’ve played games like Auto Modellista or Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec and have little problems playing those games, then this game won’t be too bad. If you are more used to arcade style racing games, then you will probably find that this is much more challenging because you can’t necessarily hit almost every corner at full speed. So, it depends on your experience of racing games how difficult this game will end up being.

What is a fair criticism is the controls. While playing, I generally found that there is a bit of a lag on the inputs. So, if you try to turn left, for instance, it takes a fraction of a second for that input to respond. In a game like simulation racing, this is particularly problematic because you need a nice responsive control system to tackle various course conditions as best as possible. At this point, not only are you fighting with the physics present in the game, but also the lagging controls as well.

Additionally, the handling of these vehicles can be less than ideal. I don’t expect cars to handle like a dream when drifting off course, but the random steering thrown in is less than realistic.

What is amusing, however, is that you can actually take advantage of the physics present in the game as well. By this, I mean, you can totally cheat in this game once you know the courses enough. For example, on some of the left and right turns in dogfight arena, you can actually intentionally cut through the dirt at full speed like a shortcut. The physics will actually turn the car more in the right direction then you would normally drive. As a result, you can actually hit those corners at full speed and make it out of those turns without too much of a problem.

Another fun way to cheat is to find rounded corner and, well, ride the walls. By this, I mean just line the car up along the wall and just keep the pedal to the metal. Your car will just slide around the bend much faster than you should if you are tackling it normally.

Also, in some cases, you can simply “bounce” off of certain walls, allowing you to ricochet through faster than your opponents.

So, in the end, the physics are problematic, but they can both help or hinder your progress depending on what you encounter. How helpful they can be depends on how much knowledge you gain from the track itself.

What I will say about this game is the fact that it’s extremely simplistic from the progression and vehicle standpoint. You simply select your car, event, select the difficulty, and select race. Outside of the linear challenge tree, there’s no real sense of progression. It’s a similar problem to what I found in Road & Track Presents: The Need for Speed. This game isn’t quite as bad as that one, but it is still very bare bones.

Additionally, all you get are the cars itself. There’s no real customization at all here. This despite the tuning references you get during some of the challenges. What’s more is that you don’t seem to have much in the way of performance statistics of each vehicle. Which car you select seems to largely be just for show because your opponents will always have similar, if not, identical specs. The racing games I recall playing at around this era at least allowed you to adjust more than transmission type. How much you can modify depends on the game, but at least those games allowed you to tweak the performance. In this game, well, not so much.

Another problem I found with this game is the long loading times. I honestly thought that loading bars were a thing of the past by this era in gaming. Unfortunately, I see long loading times before races akin to the original Playstation games. Even worse is that when you are selecting a vehicle or browsing through the showcase area, it takes several seconds for each car to load. This makes for some very painful moments of this game.

Probably the good part in all of this is that the default difficulty does have some give. Instead of needing to handle every corner near perfectly, your focus seems to revolve around handling the course to a reasonable degree. If you are mostly staying on the road and retaining some speed, you have a good chance at catching opponents or maintaining a lead. There is some elastic banding involved in this game as well to help slower players along too.

Another positive in this game is that there is some decent variety in the tracks themselves. I personally don’t recall seeing very many racing games that involve highways where you need to perform a 180 degree turn to drive back on the other side. In this game, there are a few 180 degree turns like that. Additionally, there are more standard race tracks and a few other kinds of courses as well. So, really, there is some good variety to be had while playing.

Generally speaking, this is one of those games that have a good start, but on execution, falls well short of becoming a really solid racing game. The concept of this being a simulation racing game is sound. The courses are nicely varied as well. Additionally, the challenge mode does give some storyline to the game. Unfortunately, some of the challenges are just plain irritating, the controls lag, and the responsiveness leaves a lot to be desired. What doesn’t help this game is the long load times, near bare bones structure in the menu, and lack of performance statistics and tweaking of vehicles. In the end, this game leaves a lot to be desired.

Graphically, this game feels more like a launch title for the system, not something that was released later on in the life span. While it is an overall smooth racing game, there are very little effects to speak of. The models themselves and the scenery are very basic as well. While the damage on cars does add some flare, it’s pretty basic. There is some decent variety in the tracks themselves, but that’s about it. Passable, but nothing special.

The audio is also a pitfall for this title. The game itself has a very limited musical score. In all, there are less than a half a dozen tracks and a good chunk of them sound similar to each other. Muddying the waters is the sound effects that tend to overpower the unique features of each track. As a result, the racing music all sounds the same after a while. Meanwhile, the car engines don’t sound all that great. The voice acting during the challenges does make up some of the slack, however. So, at least the audio offers some personality thanks to that.

Overall, Lotus Challenge isn’t a game I would consider to be all that amazing. While some of the core concepts like the variety of tracks and it being a simulated experience does get this game off to a good start, execution after that holds this game back. The responsiveness of the controls and the lag in them really adds unnecessary difficulty to the game. The physics can be a bit wonky at times which can be both helpful and hindering to the player. The long load times, bare bone structure in the menus, and lack of ability to tweak the vehicles doesn’t really help. What also doesn’t help is the lack of vehicle statistics. Graphics are passable and the audio is only largely saved by the voice acting. In the end, a very mediocre title.

Overall
Furthest point in game: Beat the challenge mode and won all the championship classes with default cars and settings.

General gameplay: 13/25
Replay value: 6/10
Graphics: 5/10
Audio: 3/5

Overall rating: 54%

Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.