TURBO CHALLENGE-2

WITH ITS INSTANTLY CATCHY AND ENERGETIC MELODY, CRISP DIGITAL SAMPLES AND ARPEGGIOS, BARRY LEITCH'S LAYERED, SOARING TITLE TUNE FOR GREMLIN'S LOTUS TURBO CHALLENGE 2 (OR LOTUS II: RECS AS IT'S KNOWN ON THE MEGA DRIVE) QUICKLY DROVE GAMERS CRAZY WITH EXCITEMENT

- DAVID CROOKES

Magnetic Field's Lotus series drove right to the heart of gamers and it's easy to see why. Boasting smooth-scrolling, pseudo-3D road effects, speedy gameplay and adrenaline-fuelled, split-screen, two-player action, the three entries (Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge, Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 and Lotus III: The Ultimate Challenge) published by Gremlin Graphics, pushed the abilities of the machines on which they appeared. The games also sounded great!

Lotus' audio is seen as one of the main draws of the trilogy and while Shaun Southern and Andrew Morris did a superb job composing the tunes for the first game – creating audio that could be chosen via an 'in-car' radio interface - the work of Barry Leitch on the second simply blew listeners away. The Scottish composer had begun composing music for videogames in 1986, working on the likes of Double Dragon and Emlyn Hughes International Soccer on the Commodore 64. But his tracks for Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 - in particular the title tune - were something truly special.

Barry, a musician for Imagitec Design, was handpicked to compose the audio. “I was told Gremlin was doing a