CONVERSION CAPERS
DID ANY VERSION LEAVE THE REST STANDING?
AMIGA
Of the two versions – standard and AGA – the A1200 was obviously the better-looking game, whipping along nicely at a decent framerate and with more detailed graphics. Even without such enhancements, however, the game generated Grand Prix excitement, despite being a tad too easy to pose a great challenge.
PC
The menu system on this DOS version didn’t quite appear as pretty as on the 16/32-bit versions but otherwise this was a rather faithful port.
That said, steering could feel unresponsive at times and despite moving at speed, it would veer a bit too much on the safe side, as if you had even less chance of messing things up as you motored along.
NES
For some reason, this bright and cheery looking game appears to be called Nigel Mansell’s World Championship Challenge but it’s still very much about racing: you have the options of a single circuit, a full season and Improve With Mansell. There’s less info about each track, however, and fewer customisation options to play with.
ATARI ST
The Atari ST version was a port of the Amiga game with races that ran at the same reasonably brisk pace of its 16-bit peer. While it didn’t have as great a tune and suffered jerky animation, it was still fun and – as with the Amiga – it was also possible to control the cars using Logic 3’s Freewheel steering wheel.
GAME BOY
Porting Mansell to Nintendo’s tiny screen was no small feat but the developer managed to pull it off courtesy of coder Ali Davidson. Players had the choice of joining a driving school or competing in a single race or a full season. Select Mansell Circuit, though, and you could watch how the master would fare on the track.
SNES
Arguably the best of all of the versions, making optimum use of the SNES’ hardware, this port is blisteringly fast and smooth, taking the racer to a different level and providing a deeper sense of exhilaration. Fire up the Mansell mode and you can hear the driver speak. This is the version you’ll want to keep playing.
AMSTRAD CPC
Boasting some of the finest graphics to have graced the CPC – albeit very blue – this final Gremlin game for Amstrad’s debut computer range was something of a winner. A disk-only multi-load release, it had jerky animation and it was hard to avoid collisions with rival cars, but there’s no doubting its overall polish.
MEGA DRIVE
This version feels like a different game with the car viewed from behind rather than within. “I’m pretty sure myself and Mega Drive programmer Phil Rankin were given free reign on the look and we experimented with a few different views (one was extremely pulled out) before settling on the 1/3 screen car size you see in-game,” says artist Pete Daniels.
ZX SPECTRUM
Readers of Your Sinclair told Gremlin they wanted to see Mansell ported to the Speccy and, having been inundated with replies, the developer put Mike Chilton on the job. He created a monochrome interpretation of the game that ran a little slow (he also produced the CPC version), but it retained most features of the 16-bit versions.