Games based on the toy series Hot Wheels are supposed to have traces dating back to 1984, but have for the past decade mostly stayed on mobile phones and as extra content in other car games. Until now. On Thursday, Hot Wheels Unleashed arrived on all of today’s (and yesterday’s) consoles with both brask and bram, and after a weekend in motion and the sign of excitement, we have a lot of positive and a little negative to report.
Five nice surroundings
Ready, set … Photo: Espen Jansen / Gamer.no
Hot Wheels Unleashed is a simple car game, and does not waste time and resources trying to tell a story. Instead, you are immediately thrown into a pile of different races, challenges and boss fights, where the only goal is to drive as fast as possible.
The campaign is spread over a large map where you takes route choices, unlocks secrets and earns new cars on a regular basis, while the races themselves take place on tracks set to one of the game’s five unique surroundings.
Here the road goes from the top of skyscrapers under construction to dark basement living rooms, and along the way the developers are good and creative when putting together the different levels. One level in the garage can then, for example, take the player high up, under the ceiling lights and through ventilation systems, while another garage run sends you underground and into the corridors of the house.
It works very well.
The game uses the same building blocks all the way, and here it is very exciting to stumble across. The toolbox includes regular stretches of road, turns and simple loops, but also has elements of roadblocks, boost areas and moving monsters that spray fire and cobwebs after the passing cars. Magnetic tracks are also a regular, and this allows you to drive on both ceilings and walls, much like in the latest Mario Kart games .
«Rawr.» Photo : Espen Jansen / Gamer.no
Real toy cars
Everything works very well, and even with only five different environments, there are tons of unique challenges and races spread over the six-seven hour long campaign. And even then, you have only completed a meager quarter of all the game has to offer. There are a lot of things to do and you can unlock for those who want to, and the single player part actually has a pretty interesting progression.
There is not a huge difference in how the different cars steer, but you notice that there is a certain difference in maximum speed and braking distance on several. You can also upgrade the vehicles with “gears” from challenges, and this helps to give the game a little extra leg to go on. One of my favorites, Formula Flashback, will eventually get a much better top speed than, for example, the school bus you can unlock.
The game also has a bunch of phenomenal license cars to offer, including «Party Wagon »From Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a car with Snoopy on the roof and of course the Batmobile.
I have so far only unlocked a fraction of all the vehicles, and it is by all means fun to find constantly new, but I also notice that I’m starting to get pretty fed up with Hot Wheels Unleashed after a while.
Slightly misses the ride
It will be a bit much of the same after a while, and unfortunately the driving is not quite as good as I would like it to be. It goes by all means fast, with regular use of boost and a good attempt at proper “drifting”, but it is imprecise and clumsy to such an extent that even after almost ten hours I still do not feel that I have much control.
I constantly pound into walls, regularly miss turns and lose many victory races due to both small and big mistakes. It’s so far away from the “champagne car race” you get, and the lack of precision means that I get burned out faster than I normally would. Some levels and sequences do feel extremely good, and under the right conditions there are many great races to play with here, but I do not get myself really torn with.
That the artificial intelligence is both annoying, aggressive and very unbalanced – so I often have to switch between “easy” and “medium” and never quite know how good I really am – also helps to sour the experience somewhat.
It helps a little that you can throw yourself into multiplayer matches with about the same clumsy teammates, but it does not feel any better when you constantly make mistakes you could have easily avoided in other, more potent car games.
Once again my thoughts go to Mario Kart. In Mario Kart 8, for example, it took no more than an hour or so before I felt proper control over turns and “drifting” – as if the Mario cars were an extension of my fingertips – but the same feeling is rarely a commodity in Hot Wheels Unleashed.
The paths wind and twist around each other in fantastic ways. Photo: Espen Jansen / Gamer.no
The game attempts to remedy the stagnation by letting players build their own levels with the same tools the developers have used. It eventually turns out to be a very solid creative tool, and although I personally never have the patience to use such, I think this can help fulfill many a childhood dream for the most creative and eager.
Conclusion
Hot Wheels Unleashed is visually playful, offering creative and childlike joy from A and almost all the way to Å. The levels, the cars and the feeling of speed there is nothing to say, and even with only five different environments to use, the developers have created a number of memorable and high-flying levels.
Gaper the snake in time? Photo : Espen Jansen / Gamer.no
Using the creator tool to create similar levels seems a bit strenuous at first, but is robust enough that those who enjoy it kind probably can spend hours on their own creations. The results of other people’s creative joy are also shown online, and here, as expected, there is a lot of good and a lot of bad to track.
What prevents the game from reaching even higher, is simply the driving . Each of the different cars looks great, and kicks off at a lasting speed, but even after almost ten hours of both campaign fun and multiplayer matches, I still do not feel that I have enormous control over the toy cars. It simply does not sit in the fingers as many other car games do, and there is a limit to how much crashing and ravaging you can endure during a game session before you get bored.
When the artificial the intelligence in addition is unbalanced to the point where I end up in the middle between two levels of difficulty and regularly have to run the same race three or five times due to small errors, Hot Wheels Unleashed simply misses what could otherwise have been a phenomenal final sprint.
Hot Wheels Unleashed is available on PlayStation 4 (tested), PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X / S, Nintendo Switch and Windows.
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