Nostalgia :) I had the Amiga 500 version of the game and played it a plenty. To me, my favorites from the trilogy were Lotus 2 and 3.

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

Same here!

@burrfoottopknot

6 ай бұрын

Amiga had a crisp feel about it

@Skett

6 ай бұрын

Is it true that the Amiga version struggled on the lower end Amigas? Though if you were a kid you might not have noticed. I remember playing need for speed as a kid and my dad walked in and asked me how I could play it when it ran so poorly. I honestly hadn't noticed

@nekononiaow

6 ай бұрын

The Amiga version does indeed have a slightly lower frame rate than Lotus II and there are some slowdowns in the mountain races, however the game does generally play well regardless.

@turrican4d599

6 ай бұрын

I found the tracks and the driving model best in Lotus 1

When you listen to most retro driving games with the engine sounds on, you really start to appreciate the efforts put into making most newer examples not sound obnoxious and unpleasant to listen to for more than three seconds. Most later games having a soundtrack helps, but they do all sorts of things to vary the effects and create a mix where it's various layered sounds rather than an unending single, saw-tooth drone piercing your ears.

I loved DOS Lotus III; many memories of multi-player with mates back in the day. I owned Lotus II RECS on the Mega Drive too, but because of the differences in the port, I had no idea it was actually Lotus III. I thought it was, and still is, pretty great to be honest. It's one of the smoother scrolling raster racers on the Mega Drive, and the music was a big step up from the previous Lotus game, even though it's still not outstanding. I'd love to have seen what a more capable port would have looked like though. I don't think raster racers ever saw their potential on the 16-bit systems. There's a fair few 60fps raster racers on the NES and Gameboy that really makes me wonder why we never saw anything that smooth on the Mega Drive or SNES more often. The closest we got was the SNES Nigel Mansell's World Racing Championship and Roadblasters on the Mega Drive. There's definitely some untapped potential there that I'd love to see modern day programmers take a crack at! :)

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

Tope Gear 2 on the SNES is pretty good but I'm not sure of the Frame Rate. Tope Gear 2000, also in the SNES is even better but that uses a helper DSP chip.

@akumajobelmont

6 ай бұрын

@@RetroCore Yeah, those are pretty good, but on par with OutRun 2019 on the Mega Drive I reckon. I will check them out when I get home from work :)

Great video 😊

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

Thanks! 😊

I've never played any version of this besides Lotus II RECS on the Genesis, but though it seems to get a lot of flak from other gamers, I absolutely loved playing it. Though I would get a couple of other racing carts over the next few years, Lotus II RECS was the 2nd racing game I owned for the Genesis after Championship Pro-Am. My (favorite) cousin would come over as well as my young uncle and those two, myself, and my dad would hand off playing 2-player. I didn't have any idea about the other versions of the game back then (and, admittedly, still have not played the other versions), so I didn't know what I was missing out on with regards to game in particular...and, sometimes being ignorant of other, probably better, versions is a good thing: I was able to enjoy the game without being envious of other versions (the. Lots of great memories playing the Genesis version even if it's not as good as it could be. Also, though I find music tracks 1 and 2 iffy (personally, I mostly played with it on and no sound effects though not allowing both is a huge knock against the port), I must say that the Genesis track 3 (6? on the Amiga) is one of my favorite tracks on the system (and track 4 isn't too bad). Maybe some day I'll get around to playing at least the DOS version of Lotus 3.

I played the DOS version when I was little. My brother and my friends raced each other on the split screen option a lot. We even made courses in RECS woth crazy options. Good times! I also realized one of the songs is also in the DOS version of Zool. Bit that's also a Gremlin game so it figures.

Mark, if you love music, you should listen to d4xx's Breathless remix! It is SOOOOOO good! Make sure to listen to it in the best speakers you have around your house! :) The Lotus series is the closest you'd get in PC from the Top Gear series in consoles, which it's dope given the similarities! Wish they kept the MOD versions of the music files instead of MIDIs though...

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

I'll check it out! Thanks for the recommendation 👍

Christ.. this brings back warm, nostalgic memories from my early teens, when I had my Amiga 500 🥲❤️

I love the Euro House sound. It work well on the Amiga.

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

Amiga was quite popular for that.

As a kid I loved the 2nd game in this series on the Amiga 500, especially loved the music from it and I still often listen to it. Don't think I ever played 3 though but might have to go back and try it one time.

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

Many do say that the 2nd game is the best.

Fantastic video! Great work, thanks a lot!

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

You're welcome.

I think this is one of those games you'd have had to play in it's time to appreciate.

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

True. I think top gear 2 and 3 on the SNES surpass this by a great deal.

@SomeOrangeCat

6 ай бұрын

​@@RetroCore Yeah. There's nothing wrong with *this* game per-say, but I was already into stuff like "Stunts"/"4D Sports Racing" by the time I saw it.

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

That's a good choice of games.

@turrican4d599

6 ай бұрын

@@RetroCore Blasphemy!

I certainly remember this game alright! Still own the cartridge for the Mega Drive port that was renamed Lotus II: RECS to this day. The Amiga version’s music is top notch, I will say.

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

I agree. The Amiga version has the best music by far.

@RetroArcadeGuy

6 ай бұрын

You should listen to D4XX "Breathless" track remix! You're welcome!

The PC version was the one I played first and while I do have some nostalgia towards the SB16 MIDI files, I am a bit puzzled why the port doesn't have the option for the Amiga's MOD files because again, the nostalgia is there but the MOD files just sound better; maybe there is a homebrew port out there which has the MOD files as an option, and surely, by this point PCs should've been powerful enough to have both music and sound effects. Someone here also mentioned the daXX remixes of the MODs and yes, I agree, they are awesome! Favourite music tracks: Metal Machine and Miami Ice. Space Ninja and Main Theme share 3rd and sorry but the other two will have to share 5th. Or maybe Breathless takes 5th and the last one takes 6th.

I really loved that game, the music was so good and catchy and the races fast and straightforward.

I own this on the Md and yeah it’s Mediocre which you could said that about all the ports outside of the Amiga and DOS versions and you gotta love that Amiga mode sound, anyway nice battle of the ports which is a great way kick of the new year, happy new year.

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

And a Happy New Year to you, too 🎉

I just bought the Genesis version of the game yesterday, funny enough. Just the fact that you make a video of the game, covering its ports is a coincidence on its own. I remember spending some good time with the MS-DOS version of the game in my late teens somewhere around 2017-2018, having only played the first game on the Amiga back in 2014. Music wise, I prefer playing the game with the MT-32 option, it may not be better than the Amiga version of the music, but it still has that MT-32 charm that the Ad-Lib/SoundBlaster or PC Speaker doesn't really have. I will say this though, while the PC Speaker music is pretty impressive considering it only has one channel, it is rather ear-grating to listen to for more than a minute. It's a damn shame that the third installment on the Amiga plays rather choppy, especially when compared to its first two predecessors, which kinda makes it feel like a step back in the series, and this was the game that put the other racers on the Amiga platform to shame with its smooth frame rate. Either way, it's still a pretty good game in its own right, so I'm not gonna complain too much about it. Cheers, Mark!

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

That is a coincidence! I just wish the Mega Drive version used a much better sound driver. The Amiga audio is by far the best but I do agree the Roland MT30 has a good sound as well.

Funny to see how little they changed on the PC version to turn the SE graphics into the S4. Other than the rear wing they look exactly the same, the real cars differ quite a bit at the front, rear and the skirts under the doors 😅

There's a hidden port of the C64 game called POD (Proof of Destruction) in MD Lotus II. I believe it has potential to be a new BotP episode (C64, C16, ZX81 and MD).

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

Pod Battle of the Ports. Hmm. I'll add that one to the list

@nekononiaow

6 ай бұрын

Ahahah! This is a fantastic idea!

When the video starts the first thing that came to my mind was "this is really the sound of an Amiga game" and I though that even if the sound of the Amiga has the recognition of C64's Sid is still pretty easily recognisable.. then I heard the sound(s) of the PC version and I though that those were pretty easily recognisable too and then I though about the sound of the games of platforms like Mega Drive the NES or the Game Boy and I though about how different the old platform sounds and how much recognisable a game version can be by the sound alone - something that most of the people at the time didn't even considered Are stuff like this that made me realize how much time I have spent on videogames

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

That fact you can recognise a system by the sound chip is great. Itbdoes show you have a long experience with gaming on various formats.

Amazing video series, i love lotus, keep going.

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

Thanks, will do!

I quite enjoyed the Mega Drive port back in the day but never played the other versions.

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

I guess if you had no reference, the Mega Drive version would be okay.

The DOS port is so clean and smooth that it reminds me of games that are made today that "look" or are "inspired" retro style..

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

Indeed. The DOS version was very nice. Even better if you had the Roland sound hardware.

@8bvg300

6 ай бұрын

Totally agree with the original comment. I was going to ask if you could cover a little bit more of the audio when a dos game is sort of '91 to '95, as I'm sure the pc speaker was barely used by that point, so a nice little blast of SB16 or Roland would be appreciated 👍

@lasskinn474

6 ай бұрын

@@8bvg300 I legit had not heard the pc speaker sound despite playing the game a lot in 90s. it's one of the better if not the best that style racer for dos. of course dos had lots of other style racers.

@euphorik3120

6 ай бұрын

the creators of Lotus 3 had no "retro style" in mind for others to be inspired by, they simply made a videogame according to the artist, software & hardware. "rEtRo" has become just an annoyance now people think its cool to slap next to the name of everything because in many cases that they it makes themselves look cool but because they think it makes the thing cooler than it already is, especially to what the rest of us have always just called, get this - videogames. look i wear shoes with ReTrO laces and poop in a toilet that flushes, so rEtRo. 'you play rEtRo Mega Drive?'. no, i play SEGA Mega Drive, the name is on the console. i dont play it to have people think im cool & trendy, i play it because i think its awesome and i enjoy videogames. 'buT dOeS tHe gAmE sTiLl pLaY aS gOod tOdAy?'. gee i dont know, let me open up the cartridge to see if the guts & data are any different since last tuesday. nope, its still the same game. no bottle of wine or carton of milk here and i have a hunch that fifteen years from now it will still be the same game and the word rEtRo wont magically appear next to the title printed on the box. 🙄 ok im done venting, now if youll excuse me im off to play some rEtRo chess, its exactly the same as chess but now with the unnecessary trend to call it something it isnt. ( dont mind me, when i first ran into Mark's channel years ago "retro" was just passive an i didnt think much of it other than retro "Core'" sounds rad but the last some-odd years this trendy naming things we have or enjoy "retro" shit has gotten so excessive its making my eyes an ears bleed and my brain cripple with cringe. doubtful but im hoping in a few years people will look back and say 'remember that time people started calling everything retro?' 'yeah, with videogames it was especially annoying.' )

@mercuriete

6 ай бұрын

I played on a 486 at that time and It had a turbo button. Everytime we played Lotus 3 was time to press the turbo button xD Edit: of course the music was on system speaker.

I am to this day partial to Lotus 1, which is a closed-course racing game. While 2 and 3 are more refined (especially 2 IMHO), I still prefer the single-make racing series to the OutRun style “journey”. All great games anyway, I like them so much, I ended up buying a Lotus Esprit! 😂😂

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

Owning a Lotus Esprit is very cool, 👍

@frioglobal

6 ай бұрын

@@RetroCore I love that car. I went so far as figuring out which vintage car stereo is depicted in the Lotus III music selection screen, and obtained a working one :-D

Люблю подобные сравнения 👍 Лайк и подписка!

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

Спасибо вам! Надеюсь, вам понравится канал.

one of the game im have the original Amiga original, which actuelly also was quite pricy back in the days. Its a nice racer and yes have fun with the track editor really. Music played from around 2:20 was actuelly taken from Zool. but does works well and newer thinked about it.

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

Oh, I never knew that track was taken from Zool. Makes sense though concerning the composer.

This series could kill for a remaster with audio and visual options spanning different platforms. DOS smoothness with Amiga music? Yes please. It's never going to happen, though, because of that Lotus license. 😩

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

Such a shame.

man brings back some memories this one

I think by the time this came out i had a pc and played it on there. The previous versions i had played on the ST. The ST version of this should have been STE enhanced really.

Some more Amiga love, what is going on! Although this game is a classic, I spent more time with the first installment. Still got the floppy in the drive waiting for the day I'd run the Computer again! Yeah, more probably I'd Just run a DOS version on my Old PC I have got connected already

My preferred version is the Amiga one, if only for the best sounding musics. I played with it a lot, and then came Jaguar xj220 which was also fantastic!

@stevenspx6226

6 ай бұрын

Jag xj220 was awesome

Great pick! Loved that game, i believe i played it on windows. Jaguar XJ220 was my favorite racing game, played it to death on my Amiga 1200!

@jengelenm

6 ай бұрын

Was DOS probably, my memories are fading 🤣

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

I played Jaguar XJ220 a lot too but on the Mega CD.

I had the DOS version when I was a kid. So many great memories. Thank you, Retro Core! :)

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

My pleasure!

I'm surprised there's no SNES port, but I guess they had moved on the Top Gear/Top Racer series by then.

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

Yep. It just would have caused confusion had there been a version on the snes.

Loved Lotus Trilogy on Amiga, i remember i had to get 4MB memory enhancement to play L3 on A1200 after HDD install 😅

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

A HDD install required 4MB? Wow.

@zenders1022

6 ай бұрын

Because that wasn't an official installer, the original couldn't be installed to HDD. This was probably jst where they just crammed all floppy images in RAM hence the need for such requirement. For instance, the CD32 version can be played if you just copy the files from CD to HDD to a standard 1200 with 2MB

I almost wanted to call this Lotus 1-2-3 but I ain't talking about spreadsheets. I enjoyed the Genesis/Megadrive version mainly cause I haven't played the other versions.

4:14 It's interesting that they did not adopt the graphics in the DOS version to accomodate for the non-square VGA 320x200 pixels. As a result everythig appears streched vertically compared to the Amiga. You'll notice it well with the Lotus logo in the intro or the stop watches in the result screenn. They appear oval rather than round.

We loved to play the AMIGA version

So it was from herr were the uLoad Wii homewreb channel's music came from, i have so.e nostalgia for the second song.

The Amiga version gets my vote for the music alone, though I've got a bit of a soft spot for the Mega Drive version. The music didn't sound as harsh through the speaker in my 14 inch TV back in the day. Funny thing about that version though: it's missing a music track. What's funny about it is that AFAIK it's in the ROM, it just goes unused for some reason. It's not really any worse than the other tracks, so it's a mystery to me why it wasn't selectable.

@Amiga500_User

6 ай бұрын

Yes, the Amiga music is above and beyond the rest.

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

I'd have to agree with you there. The Amiga music is very good. It's odd that they have the missing music track on the ROM but didn't bother to use it.

WOW! What a choice of a game Mark! I love Fatal Fury 3. We would love to see that from you and listen in on what you have to say. I owe you a big favor if it's possible Mark. 8^) Anthony..

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

I can tell you now that the Saturn port sucks big time.

The CD32 version is as smooth as the DOS version. There's also a speed fixed version for the Amiga.

this was THE pivotal game; it showed the Amiga at it's peak (and limit, unfortunatelly) playing stable on 500 & 1200 (even CD32) but while the Atari port seems a bit simplified, the PC shines ! having VGA & sound cards made all the diff ! (this is before Windows too) the Sega should have been the best, but it was obviously rushed ... imagine what the SNES could have been.

@nekononiaow

6 ай бұрын

IMO, the peak was Lotus II performance wise as it is definitely smoother than the III.

@turrican4d599

6 ай бұрын

@@nekononiaow For II you need an A1200 at least.

Played it at the time. It seemed as though the MegaDrive version was released unfinished.

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

It certainly seems that way but I think Gremlins just didn't care for quality.

Two of the music tracks sound like they are taken from Zool. I believe the tracks and track names are track 2 (Metal Machine) and track 4 (Space Ninja). Track 4 seems identical to one of the Zool music tracks, which makes sense considering the track name, whilst track 2 seems more like it takes a part of one of the Zool music tracks instead of being a full copy. I find that the best way to play this game is to run the DOS version in DOSBox with sound effects rather than music tracks, whilst having the Amiga music playing in the background (I have the Amiga music tracks as MP3s), so that I get both music (and the better quality music, at that) and sound effects.

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

Does game mixed with Amiga music is indeed a good option.

@juanignacioaschura9437

6 ай бұрын

They are taken from Zool, both games' soundtracks were composed by Patrick Phelan. What's interesting is that despite Space Ninja playing in the Mega Drive port of Zool, it was not brought over to the Mega Drive port of Lotus III, instead being replaced by track 6 (Race BGM) from Nigel Mansell's World Championship Racing.

A pity about the megadrive port, it should have been as good as the ms dos version. I have the DOS version and really like it!! it was really fun mo muck around with the parameters of the RECS system :D:D

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

Agreed! The Mega Drive port is just a lame effort all round.

Decent game on the amiga once my friend got a copy that worked

Good video bud. Would you ever do Pastfinder please ? Not many versions. Thank you.

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

I'm not familiar with Past finder but I'll add it to the list. Need to do some research on that game.

Lotus III really needs an A1200 to run smoother.

@sfx1672

Ай бұрын

It runs smoother on the 1200? Like ms-dos?

The AtariST version is faster because it is clocked faster than the Amiga 500. Amiga 1200 plays Lotus III at PC speed.

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

That faster speed does help with handling for sure.

@Maraka77i

6 ай бұрын

It's even faster and smoother on 1991 released Atari Mega STe. Very close to the DOS version actually in animation speed.

soooo cool

Absolutely classic game! I did enjoy it a lot later after playing Test Drive 3 and even Need for Speed 2. Still holds very well, I don't know if GOG released it again, but if it didn't, get the cd (msdos) version! Recomended!

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

I wanted to check out the DOS CD version to see what type of audio it had.

@leonardoantonio8756

6 ай бұрын

@@RetroCore I don't remember very well how it sound back then on the old win 98 pc and it think I didn't appreciate it like I should, but there are some playlist in youtube to listen the midi tracks, I think played with s quality midi card and a roland 32 mixer and accessories.

Right - emulation time! Although i can't believe how lazy that gene/drive port was!

Shame on the lazy programmers for not having used the extended hardware of the STe. Using the blitter and dma sound, we could have seen an ST version identical to the Amiga one, if not faster.

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

I guess they figured the ST was on its way out at that point?

@hundgirridchannel

6 ай бұрын

@@RetroCore There are plenty of ST games released after 1992 for both standard ST and STE: First that comes in mind are Titus the fox, Pushover, Holocaust, Epic, Cannon fodder, The chaos engine, Sensible soccer, Sleepwalker. The thing is that it was much easier and cheaper to program for the ST without adding code for the extended hardware of the STE.

These are all Teslas withouta driver to be seen behind the wheel!

I absaloutly loved the Amiga version, i think 2 was still my favourite. Iirc you could serial link 2 amigas together to play 4 player

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

You could also cross play with an ST. That was pretty cool.

The Mega Drive game is in low res (32-col/8:7/255 horizontal pixel mode). So weird given all the others are 320px wide. Also, like Lotus Turbo Challenge before it, is only 30fps, unlike the Amiga's 60fps (on the first 2 games at least?). Despite that, I got to the final level, taking an inordinate amount of time given the high level of difficulty and addictive gameplay.

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

The Mega Drive version is just a sad lazy port.

@iwanttocomplain

6 ай бұрын

well using the smd low res mode doesn't improve system performance, believe it or not. But the game would be improved alot with better music, res and frame rate. I will point out again that I almost completed the game so it's not a bad game overall.@@RetroCore

The best racing game for the Amiga, period.

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

Strong words. Better than Lotus 2?

@fulgenzio1973

6 ай бұрын

@@RetroCore On par, but I personally enjoyed 3 more than 2 (outstanding). Sometimes I think how well racing conversions like Out Run or Wec le Mans would have been made if the Magnetic Fields people had done them...

@nekononiaow

6 ай бұрын

Ah, fighting words Mark! 😉 I do think Lotus II was better, smoother and more focused. But III isn't bad by any means.

Played the living crap out of the PC port with my cousin. ❤ BTW, for the Japanese market i half expected some madman to port it to the PC98. 😅

4:49: Question is, how comes the PC Speaker is being played in the beginning of the MS-DOS port before you changed it (before filming)? Does it default it manually?

@RetroCore

4 ай бұрын

Sadly the default is PC Speaker. You aren't able to change the setting until you reach the title screen.

@Gloryzuki

4 ай бұрын

@@RetroCore Ah. Okay then.

I did not know the Megadrive had a version. Lotus II I knew there was, but not this one.

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

Maybe it was a European only release?

@pclinuxos_br

6 ай бұрын

@@RetroCore Could be. But to think that all the scrolling and sprite scaling was done by software, oh boy, very impressive.

Much of my childhood is summarized in Lotus III for MS-DOS, so for me it will always be the best version

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

I think it is easily the best playing and looking version. Best sounding goes the the Amiga. Now if only we could have the PC version with the Amiga audio.

Excellent Mark, Hope you be interested on participating with us to celebrate the Anniversary bro. 8^) Anthony..

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

Maybe, it all depend on my schedule. I may do Fatal Fury 3 Battle of the Ports for it.

Yep they sure dropped the ball on the Sega MegaDrive version... it really should have been better than the Amiga original in terms of 1993 and the ROM Cartridge size possibilities being far more abundant than previous years... it would have been nice if you compared it to the Top Gear games from the same year if any but most of us already know.

Amiga Rulez !

1. Sega 2. DOS 3. Amiga 4. Atari

@AMIGABLUEBIRD

6 ай бұрын

made my day ahahaha

I was amazed when I found out the original amiga music tracks. The PC sound track is reaĺly bad. Both versions share music with Zool. Never finished it because the difficulty spike on the mountain side track.

A1200 FTW !

ATARI ST FOREVER. AMIGA SUX :p

Да,звук у Atari ST не очень здесь,а так лучшая версия для CD32 3 в 1 👍

The MD version has an exclusive track environment (Island) that replaces the mountain road environment in the computer versions. I'm guessing the "complexity" of the mountain tracks always having the open cliff on the left side was too complicated for the developers to port to the MD version? The island tracks of course in turn, always have the ocean on the left side of the track as well and neither of them feature any elevation changes.

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

It's not difficult, just the developers of the Mega Drive version were either lazy, pressed for time or didn't care.

I'm curious how good the DOS version would sound with the Roland (Not sure if this is referring to the MT-32 or SC55/SC88), as usually Soundblaster/Adlib cards weren't used to the best of their ability. Still probably not to the level of the Amiga soundchip, but to be fair, the Amiga was ahead of its time in that category. Sadly the Mega Drive port looks pretty awful, though I don't think it sounds as bad as the DOS FM version. Unfortunately Mega Drive conversions of Amiga games were usually awful, though sometimes you get a real winner like Mega Turrican or Flink.

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

It works with the MT32. It isn't as good as the Amiga but does have its own unique and good quality sound.

Is it just me or did the Amiga version soundtrack sound like the music from ZOOL

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

Someone else in the comments mentioned that the music is indeed from Zool.

I do prefer Jaguar XJ220

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

I do too, especially the real track editor.

@turrican4d599

6 ай бұрын

Jaguar looks ugly, especially the thick black outlines around the car.

Man that DOS version is buttery smooth by comparison! Almost looks like a modern engine update to the Amiga original

@iwanttocomplain

6 ай бұрын

I've been advocating the return of a true line scrolling engine recently. Not just a sprite on a polygonal track. I want Vroom given a rerelease.

Lotus 3 and all USA region Amiga games play faster in 60hz mode, I had a disk that would put my Uk 50hz A500 in 60hz mode. Speedball 2 was another one that benefited from 60hz. Think on the original version of Lemmings I only had to press the tab key to get 60hz. Of course you need a display that was 60hz compatible.

I doubt they could have done much more with the CD32 version...not exactly you were going to get a texture map pack added to it...the CD32 was not a powerhouse compared to it's contemporaries ie 3DO and Jaguar

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

Or even the Super Nintendo 😅

@yuvraj01

6 ай бұрын

@@RetroCore exactly...and Commodore were gunning for Sega aiming their CD32 at the Sega CD...when the CD32 wouldn't have been able to do those Mode 7 levels in Sonic CD!

Pea soup!!!

As an Amiga fanboy who loved this both back in the day and now on my Super Console X2 Pro, the DOS version does look the best, seems to have a slightly higher frame rate and the roadside objects scale smoother as you go past them. ST looks awful. 😁

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

The DOS version is by far the smoothest however the Amiga does have the best audio.

@turrican4d599

6 ай бұрын

@@RetroCore Amiga 68060 with Fast Mem is smoothest.

DOS version is best, but the Amiga version has the best soundtrack!

Amiga is the best version of Lotus

@AMIGABLUEBIRD

6 ай бұрын

only A1200 + :)

Wait, was Top Gear on the SNES just a clone of Lotus?

@gipgap4

6 ай бұрын

Essentially, yes. Or inspired if you will.

Jaguar XJ220

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

Coming very soon.

the mega drive port is just insulting, considering the hardware. seems so phoned in.

Cheers for this battle Mark, I always like to see the 16bit computers in the mix with them being so different in hardware spec, a shame that Megadrive port is so lame though, in the comparison at the end you see it clear as day with no animation on the car select and what appears to be a broken equaliser on the music selection, just crap tbh and that driver they've used is so bad giving you that horrible whining MD sound your snes owning friends would mock you for.

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

Yeah, the Mega Drive port was really poor. It should have been so much better than it was.

😁

DOS

As a Mega Drive owner back then, I had to be happy with the fairly poor effort by Gremlin Graphics, as I considered it to be my poor man's Top Gear 2. As I hadn't played the other versions of the game, I thought it was cool! But yeah, not that good though.

@RetroCore

Ай бұрын

Yeah, it was definitely the poor man's top gear 2. I was lucky at this point and owned both a Super Famicom with a Wild Card DX and a Mega Drive. There were some games that I just wished were better on the Mega Drive, this being one of them.

Many Amiga racing games were crap but I played them because of their soundtracks including Jaguar XJ220 and Super Cars II from these same guys... oh that sweet intro!

@turrican4d599

6 ай бұрын

Super Cars 1 is not crap.

@Angellmbrr

6 ай бұрын

@turrican4d599 that's true, super cars I is much better than SC2

What a shame. Once again, Gremlin Graphics didn't/couldn't take what there was to learn about the SNES games they worked on and apply it to the Genesis/MD port. Yet another missed opportunity.

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

Indeed. A big missed opportunity.

I never liked Lotus 3, I always preferred Lotus 1 and 2.

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

Lotus 2 is said to be the best one by most people.

@christianjohansson8694

6 ай бұрын

@@RetroCore yep or a mix of Lotus 1 and 2. I liked the cdplayer and the music in Lotus 1 and that you're racing for position instead of time. But the courses are better in Lotus 2 and it also supports nullmodem.

Looks like a decent game for the time period. If I had to choose I would go with the MS-DOS version.

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

Good choice.

The Mega Drive version runs with a smoother framerate on an overclocked Mega Drive.

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

So would most games.

@31leoceara

6 ай бұрын

@@RetroCore Most games on the Mega Drive have a locked framerate. They don't get any benefit of an overclocked hardware. Lotus 3 is among those few games that get a MUCH smoother framerate without ruining the game's speed/physics.

As u say the megadrive version should of been alot more colourful , as better hardware .the music is just awful . Loved the amiga version back in the day.

@RetroCore

6 ай бұрын

Totally agree

pc version may be a tad faster than the amiga one, but ugh, the music...

The MS Dos version sounds terrible.... 😵‍💫

Never gave the Lotus series much time over the years, they just looked so bland compared to the Japan developed racers.

Soundblaster 16, Adlib, Roland and PC Speaker .. *Where* is there an upgrade to the Amiga? :P The speaker and and the synth based options are just jokes anyway, because they cannot replicate arbitrary sounds, which is unacceptable and the Spundblaster 16 despite suppopsedly being able to play 16bit/48kHz always soundes like it was the worst possible speaker in the world stuffed in a drawer full of socks playing mono samples at 4bit/8kHz.

A very forgetable game in all the ports.