Hot Wheels Unleashed arrives on PS4 and PS5, Xbox One and Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC on September 30.ĭisclaimer: I was provided with a copy of Hot Wheels Unleashed in exchange for a fair and honest review. Alongside a big career mode, livery editor, two-player local and 12-player online multiplayer, and licensed vehicles, there’s a tightly controlled, great-looking arcade racer that’s perfect for players of all ages and skills–and thanks to its track builder, it’s only going to get bigger and better by the day. Nonetheless, for all its minor annoyances, Hot Wheels Unleashed gives you a remarkable bang for your buck. Aside from a clear take on James Brown’s ‘Living in America’ that often plays in career mode’s menus, its range of unlicensed songs is inoffensive, but in races, they’re horribly distorted by boosts, while transitions from song to song are jarringly blunt. For example, expanding your car collection–a core part of the game–is just weird blind boxes can’t be opened within career mode, nor in your collection, forcing you to drop back to the main menu and go through the shop. A mixture of one-touch and hold-to-confirm inputs is oddly used and unnecessary. The only thing holding back Hot Wheels Unleashed’s track editor is its odd, counter-intuitive menu UI, though this is part of a wider problem with the game as a whole. In a matter of weeks, one can only imagine how much incredible user-generated content will be available on its servers. Once you’re happy to test your creation, you can hop in a heavy tractor to survey it–this initially feels annoying, but from a UX perspective, it’s entirely understandable, as it ensures even the slowest cars can navigate all sections.
"Boss" battles are where track design really steps up a notch. Sculpting turns or long sections of track is surprisingly easy. It really is only limited by your imagination (and relatively generous piece limits), and you can weave around and even incorporate five zones’ worth of surroundings, or go old-school in an empty room. Of course, Hot Wheels Unleashed isn’t just restricted to what it gives you–its deluxe track builder mode is one of the most comprehensive creation suites out there. Speed traps, dividers, bridges, car-flipping magnetized sections, and more combine to offer some of the most inventive racetracks you’ve ever seen.
Chief among these are the so-called “boss” battles, where you unlock famous Hot Wheels playsets by making the podium in long, incredibly designed circuits. However, as the game unfurls, circuits become more experimental, exciting, and downright devious, distracting from the relatively basic racing formats. Some time trials, in particular, feel dull and don’t scale to your chosen difficulty or choice of car–there are 32 in all, each with two target times, and longer tracks (two minutes and above) can be a drag. In its desire to ease gamers into the action, Hot Wheels Unleashed underplays its hand with several vanilla tracks that don’t showcase what it’s capable of. Its races, time trials, “bosses”, and secrets, rewarding you with cars, gears (for upgrades), cash, and various ways to decorate your basement–your own private space that doubles as a host for the game’s track builder mode. The core career mode, Hot Wheels City Rumble, offers the bulk of the action, helping you unlock the game’s four-dozen or so tracks. Hot Wheels favorites and licensed classics are up for grabs. It’s a little too frequent, even for an arcade racer, but you soon adapt. If you nail your turns, you’ll have nitro ready every four or five seconds, and on medium or hard difficulty, you need to use it as often as you can. Perfectly straddling the line between real-life cars and plastic toys, you feel the weight of your car as you race and drift, only to have your world turned upside down–often, quite literally–by a nasty back-end wall slam, misjudged ramp transition, or a loop taken at low speed.īoosts, in particular, are at the very core of the experience: you bank them from nailing your timing in the start-line countdown and charge your meter up through drifting, as well as F-Zero-style strips on the track. While handling takes quite a long time to get used to, Hot Wheels Unleashed’s gravity is superb. You can really feel the difference in vehicle types, too, allowing for plenty of testing to find your preferred ride.
#All cars in hot wheels unleashed drivers
Certain tracks feel as well-designed as Mario Kart 8’s Dragon Driftway: pure perfection for drivers that love going sideways. Once you get to grips with drifting, every perfectly taken corner makes you feel like a maestro. Drifting takes some learning, but perfect corners are ridiculously satisfying.
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