WEC Le Man

STORY / GAMEPLAY
In this game, you race through a tough and exhausting race, the WEC Le Mans championship! Each race is split into four laps (two during daytime and two after sunset) divided also into three checkpoints. Due to the limitations of the CPC hardware, all cars have the same design and don't correspond to actual models. The Le Mans 24-hour race is the most famous endurance test for both man and machine. Thankfully, you don't have to race around the circuit for 24 hours(!) You only have to complete all four laps. Your super car has only two gears (Low and Hi) but it's fast! And you really need to be fast to reach each of the checkpoints before the time runs out. As you progress, you'll encounter more cars and you'll need to be more careful or you will easily crash rather spectacularly with your car flying in the air. In general it is hard to beat the game's races as the opposing drivers stay most of the time in the middle of the racing track or slide towards your side crashing you and making you lose valuable time. OK, the game is a quite good coin-op conversion and it is quite fun to play!

GRAPHICS / SOUND
It's a great surprise that the ZX Spectrum version (128k only models) plays great and features pretty good graphics (limited to its color palette) with fast background scrolling (a bit faster than the CPC!) and nice sprite animations i.e. when your car spins after a serious crash (but does not roll on the air as on the CPC and C64 versions). The visuals look quite close to the CPC but has much less colors and a few less details. The opponent cars are nicely drawn and there are a few road signs, lights and trees in each track's sides in which you may easily crash onto. The sound on the ZX is also good, featuring a catchy intro tune and a few nice sound effects during gameplay.

GAMEPLAY SAMPLE VIDEO
On our video below you may watch the Amstrad CPC, Sinclair ZX Spectrum conversions plus the original arcade coin-op version of the game.