free-roaming cities (Wellington, Gamesborough, Minster and Romford) through which the player may drive as they see fit. Each city features a grid plan of roads, and each is progressively more difficult; the first city contains many three lane roads making speeding and dodging traffic easy, whereas the later ones have more two-lane and one-way roads. The cities contain many computer-controlled cars, all of which obey basic traffic laws, such as keeping below a set speed limit, stopping at the working traffic lights, moving out of the way of obstacles such as roadworks, and attempting to avoid head-on collisions with the player. They will also stop at zebra crossings to allow waiting pedestrians to cross the road. Contact with or destruction of these cars results in score penalties. The player's car can also run out of fuel, and so the player must stop at petrol stations to refill. The Spanish version claims it to be set in the city of Manhattan, despite the fact that no changes were made to the game itself, which retains its British-style road markings and driving on the left. Development According to author Mike Richardson, Turbo Esprit took 10 months to develop, the longest time he ever spent on a single game. It was developed with the cooperation of Lotus Cars Ltd., who provided "technical assistance". Reception Turbo Esprit was generally well received by the gaming press, gaining positive reviews from most major gaming magazines. Sinclair User called it "one of the best games ever released", and it has since been described as "pioneering" and "one of the Spectrum's best original games". The Spectrum version was voted number 64 in the Your Sinclair Readers' Top 100 Games of All Time. Retro Gamer magazine said of the game: "It was way ahead of its time and it could be argued that what you are looking at here is the genesis of the Grand Theft Auto series", and that it "sealed Durell's reputation as a purveyor of quality software". References External links Crash review Sinclair User review 1986 video games Commodore 64 games Amstrad CPC games Lotus Cars ZX Spectrum games Video games developed in the United Kingdom Video games set in England Open-world video games Racing video games Durell Software games Single-player video games