The game is a graphically enhanced remake of Southern and Morris' Commodore 64 game POD.
The Amiga and Genesis versions of Lotus III again contain a hidden game, accessed by the password CU AMIGA in the Amiga version and POD PLEASE on the Genesis. The RECS system was later reused in another Magnetic Fields' game, International Rally Championship. The RECS system allows players to quickly create a unique track without having to use a course editor however, it sacrificed the facility of precisely positioning turns or obstacles.
The course can also be written in form of a letter-and-digit code and later reused these can be raced individually or in a series of up to nine user-created tracks. The created track can then be raced by one or both players. The system allows users to create a race track by defining various basic parameters, such as amount and difficulty of turns and hills, amount of obstacles, type of scenery or difficulty of opponents.
Lotus III features a Racing Environment Construction Set (RECS) course creation system. The MS-DOS version was released again in 1996, this time on a CD-ROM. Apart from the slightly different car's graphics, the difference in gameplay is minimal, if any. The MS-DOS version features the Lotus Esprit S4 instead of the Esprit Turbo SE. The Genesis/Mega Drive version bears the name Lotus II: RECS (referring to the game's new course creation feature) or simply Lotus II depending on country of release, while the MS-DOS port released in 1993 was called Lotus: The Ultimate Challenge. The game recycled most of the graphics from Lotus 2, but added a number of new sceneries. Lotus III also added a third car - a concept Lotus M200 automobile - and allowed the player to choose which one to race with. The two-player option was retained and the music selection feature returns (Patrick Phelan's soundtrack to Lotus III spawned many modern remixes). The third game in the series combined the gameplay aspects of its predecessors, allowing players to choose between racing opponents of Lotus Turbo Challenge or the arcade-like time trials of Lotus 2. Original Amiga versions of the games were created by Shaun Southern and Andrew Morris of Magnetic Fields, and then ported by other individuals to several other computers and game consoles. Published between 19 by Gremlin Graphics, the games gained very favourable reviews upon release.
The Lotus series consists of three racing computer games based around the Lotus brand: Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge, Lotus Turbo Challenge 2, and Lotus III: The Ultimate Challenge. Be patient :-)Īndrew Morris, Shaun Southern, Peter Liggett Unfortunately, this game is currently available only in this version. If you prefer to use a java applet emulator, follow this link. This game is emulated by javascript emulator em-dosbox.
For fullscreen press 'Right Alt' + 'Enter'. Game is controlled by the same keys that are used to playing under MS DOS.