Sights & Sounds
- It honestly looks far better than I was expecting, especially in motion. Flying around the tracks featured plenty of colorful eye candy
- Seeing several of the car designs made me feel a bit nostalgic. I collected some cars I owned as a kid, except these didn't have their paint all chipped to ♥♥♥♥ by my Criss Cross Crash
- The sound design is also pretty nice. The soundtrack is forgettable, but otherwise the "game sounds" are well done

Story & Vibes
- It's a Hot Wheels racing game. It's a cynical corporate cash grab featuring a beloved children's toy, and also a game about making your car go fast. There is no story worth mentioning

Playability & Replayability
- If you've played any arcade racing game since the invention of the drift button, this will feel familiar to you. Car handling is way ramped up, presumably to not frustrate the younger target audience
- In that regard, the star ratings on the cars don't mean much except for the speed rating. Just pick the fastest car you have access to, and you'll probably win any race you try (barring a mistake)
- The game modes aren't anything worth mentioning, though the track builder is a neat feature. I didn't delve into the multiplayer. For a single player experience, I mostly focused on the challenge map, which contains a nice variety of regular races, time trials, 1:1 face-offs against special opponents, and other tasks. None of them will take more than a few tries to complete
- Unfortunately, once the map is filled out, there's not really anything left for you to do besides online play (which I assume is dead at this point)

Overall Impressions & Performance
- It would be irresponsible to not mention the absolutely ridiculous DLC tomfoolery at work here. There's hundreds of dollars worth of add-ons in the form of other cars that aren't available in the base game. None of them are better than what you can unlock yourself, so don't waste your money
- The game ran better than I thought it would given the quality of the visuals, which is something

Final Verdict
- 5.0/10. It's just an average arcade racer with a Hot Wheels veneer and ridiculous amounts of DLC. It runs well for a cash grab, but it's still an uninspiring racing title that you'll forget about within a month

Divertido, simples, intuitivo;

Só falta o polimento em outras áreas do game como uma campanha ou novos modos de jogo, personalização dos carros, mas a base aqui é muito boa!

Nota 8

Game #113: Hot Wheels Unleashed

I really liked Hot Wheels Unleashed. Cars handle pretty well, visuals are great and visually it's pretty decent as well. There are no story mode or any other distractions, just straight up racing.

7/10

It has a lot of flaws like microtransaction DLC hell, random car unlocks, and track hazards that exist only to annoy you, but my god the racing mechanics themselves are SO fun. All of the fun I’ve had is in seeing just how extreme of a shortcut I can take sometimes, finding ways to cut corners by flying through the air. It’s like if Rocket League was a racing game instead of car soccer and it just works. Messing around with the track editor is alright too, but the way custom tracks are handled is kinda clunky - at least when it comes to, you know, playing them. Overall it’s an alright game held up by surprisingly fun gameplay, it definitely doesn’t need the amount of DLC it has or the sequel it’s getting tho.

Hot Wheels unleashed is a pretty decent game that can be really fun to play, but it's hindered by a lot of microtransactions and UI that feels like it was designed for a mobile game. I think the content that it offers is great to the point where there isn't really any pressure to get DLC unless you really want it but the absolute abundance of it is ridiculous.

I've found racing to be extremely fun, especially in scenarios where I'm playing with friends and we're neck and neck while I'm driving the Barbie Dream Camper or when I'm flying solo and I put on my eurobeat and punk rock playlists to fuel my inner drift queen. This is definitely a game you should consider grabbing if you want to play a casual arcade racing game, yearn for a Hot Wheels experience and don't mind putting up with some of the issues it has. With that said, I don't think the base game is worth getting at its current asking price and only recommend grabbing it on a sale.

Hot Wheels Unleashed is really cool in the sense that the company owns a ton of stuff, and they are able to have a bunch of outrageous Hot Wheels in the game itself. It's basically a novelty racer with some interesting mechanics that does it's job well enough. Like there is absolutely a full hearty racer in this game, and there is even a custom mode to it to make your own tracks, but in doing so everything just kinda blends to the point it feels barren.

It's not in the sense that there is no substance to this game, but I think that's the hard part to figure out why it's not that interesting. Like it still feels like a decent racer with some interesting drifting and boosting techniques, but as you race more and more a lot of the tracks blend together and the novelty of them wears off. Hot Wheels also feel like they are different enough, but also not at all. See, largely due to the sheer roster, and track building mechanics it really feels like everything is a copy pasted version of itself. Like there is proper substance and style to everything here, but when you keep looking it's more like 3 different tracks, 3 different types of cars, and 3 different traps. There is enough variety that it keeps your attention initially, then just sorta never gets higher than that initial first impression. Like the campaign is there, but gets repetitive after a while. The traps are interesting and neat, but often feel cheap and unavoidable at times. Even the tracks, which should be the most interesting part to each racing game; just kinda flop with how they don't do more than what you are first shown.

If this stuff doesn't bother you, I'm sure you can have a lot of fun times with this game. Heck, with the way Hot Wheels Unleashed has it's collection game play loop, I can even see this game being thrilling for people that are a fan of the toy series. As for me, I simply have enjoyed other racers more because the tracks are just more engaging to me. Not to say I didn't put my hours into this game, but I don't really remember a lot of my run through with it. And as something that is supposed to be played constantly to "get everything" I just see it getting boring after the first 5 hours.Not to say that 5 hours isn't nothing though, it's certainly better than a lot of other games out there.

I don't know if it's the standard for games featuring loot boxes or if I've just been incredibly lucky at avoiding this exact situation, but getting hit with a loot box before even starting the tutorial has to be some kind of record.

Hot Wheels Unleashed is a cool game in-concept, with highly-detailed (not on the Switch lmao) car models accurately reflecting the actual Hot Wheels model cars, furiously racing down a toy track complete with loop-de-loops, boosts, and off-track sections showcasing that the courses take place inside of a home. These are toys, after all.

In practice, I'm honestly too blinded by anger from the immediate loot boxes and all of the cool cars being DLC that I'm just gonna end the review highly discouraging spending money on anything ever. The one-two-punch of seeing the Mystery Machine as a playable car, and then seeing "Paid DLC" next to it isn't one I'm gonna forget.

Thankfully, I am a drunken sailor.

I feel like at this point its accepted that racing games became skewed towards reality. Not realism, reality.
Its kinda a given, expected and probably demanded that each new major release will have licenced cars by major car manufacturers.
Fantasy of owning and driving real cars became integral whatever game is about serious motorsport and grounded driving model or about cop chases in the urban enviorment and effortless drifting.
Hot Wheels Unleashed is also about fantasy of owning and driving cars by a hot manufacturer, however said fantasy is much closer to reality to an average person.

Hot Wheels toy car line up doesnt need no introduction obviously, chances are you may even own some without even being able to remember it.
Not only its cool looking car models, they can even drive, albeit in a straight line and to be able to turn you need to buy proprietary orange road that essentially railroads the the dar in a narrow "slide" or get creative and do some DIY stuff to achieve similiar effect.

In his video about Burnout Paradise (https://youtu.be/djGeem-QYow?si=rFMnaMQv9sp__GgP) Errant Signal compares the game mentality to treating cars like toys, Burnout Paradise indeed captures sense of whimsy of a child smashing toy cars into each other without any second thought about not damaging toys in state of the art 3d real time rendering and soft body simulations.
Hot Wheels Unleashed is this in a more literary sense.
The way game manages to create a fantastical premise while engaging with a sense of reality is trully compelling, while for example Lego games also being real physical toys licenced games generally try to create their own fantastical world with a liberal use of actual Lego bricks, Unleashed puts fantastical into your living room.. or your neon bathed basement... or highrise building thats in the process of being build...
Its comparable to likes of Toy Story, Chibi Robo or Army Man RTS, but can we call it "toys came to life" if toys dont have actual humanity? Are they sentient? Do they have qualia?
Basically Unleashed is exxagarated fantastical idea of playing with Hot Wheel cars, unshackled from reality. Build tracks impossible in real life in your virtual living room, or do so on the top of highrise building - there is some grounded sense of absurdity to it.

And its not just visual texture either, it inspires genuinely most inventive aproach to track design for an arcade racing game i've experienced on the 8th generation of console.
Linear orange orange roads with stage gimmicks and maybe some diverging points give way to driving outside of the track. Its still linear part of the track, but hard walls are replaced with traffic cones. It has certain vibes of breaking the rules despite you in fact obeying the rules still.

Well you can actually break the rules, in a way similiar to Quake famous bunny hopping, but likely intended by the developers and with a certain restrictions.
The game physics are weird and in general i feel they capture idea of a toy car very well with how it can fly off the track from collision with another car or a stage hazard, while also arcade racing grip for break to drift (altho i had Need for Speed: Most Wanted moments for car turning over from those), but it can be really weird on slops which tracks consists of cuz they are build like a rollercoasters with constant going up and down. If you have too much speed or go nitro at the wrong time you can fly off the track on the up climb which can feel unwieldy. However more advanced players can take adventage of that to take insane shortcuts thru the track, hence breaking the rules. If this was indeed intended mechanic by the devs, then obviously tracks build with some of those shortcuts in mind, however this new style of maneuvering in space makes them non obvious and makes you feel rewarded for breaking the game in the speedrunner way even if was actually intended.
Tracks have checkpoints you have to pass thru in order balance this out and prevent you from lets say somehow skipping to a finish line at the start.

A lot of racing games tend to build their single player progression around packing selection of all its track into repeated loop of playing them over and over again with difficulty naturaly going up via both player and opponent driving progressively faster cars. Sprinkle different gameplay modes that arent just generic racing on top and maybe also add racing same tracks in reverse. The way you pack this repetion in gameplay systems outside of the core racing, and how to contextualise unlocking new challenges and cars to drive - is in my eyes a core of single player progression for racing game. You can call it "content interfacing", because outside of open world context those systems tend to be menu based.
And i feel like this is pretty much weakest aspect of the game and it goes beyond single player experience and negatively impacts multiplayer.

Its not uncommon for racing games developed starting from 7th gen (when online infrastructure for games in general became closer to how we know it today and online on consoles became a more common "default" thing) to have shared progression between single and multiplayer - for example in both Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2010 and Wreckfest you earn same point and both and use cars from the same garage.
And yeah Hot Wheels Unleashed is also like that. I think what lets it down a lot (and its pretty much universally agreed) is that you get a new cars via loot box system. It pretty much destroys sense of progression, there will be high possibility that you will drive one and only car with high enough average between all stats for the whole game.
Cool toy cars freed from the restains of reality doing impossible things they could before are now ironicaly shackled by arbitatrary assigned videogame stats, arbitatrary assigned value. The game will tell you how this funny looking ice truck that you really like the looks of is actually worthless, and you have no choice but to put this new toy into your toy box and never play with it ever again.

Its quite sad, but i also dont know how they could handled it otherwise with amount cars the game has. The game tries to remedy "same car every race" by having special points on the map you pick races from be locked and having unlock conditions of using car X in event Y, while also giving said car somewhere else on the map. But interfacing for this is super cumbersome, having to find event by name and then I basically just replay it in a worse car than i finished it before.
I found map system itself neat, but those locked points with special conditions really kill the sense of being able to aproach it non linearly. While there are basically only 2 modes (standart racing and lap time goal), it manages to feel like everytime you actually race on a new map, so that pretty impressive. Probably the way tracks are done by putting orange roads differently in the same 4 big rooms enables pretty convenient way to reitarate it and build tracks.
And players can do that themself too with the ingame level editor honestly i cant even remember when was the last time i played around in editor. Obviously this feature is reflective of how people play with Hot Wheels toys and once again enables people to engage with them in ways that reality cant allow.

Its honestly sad that the game has such issues, cuz core racing is really solid and Its most inventive arcade racing we saw this generation full of Forza Horizon 2 clones. Its original soundtrack is cool and while i think licenced OSTs have their place, its so fresh to have a racing game that doesnt need to rely on lets say music from the outside. Altho this music clashes with pretty uninspired presentation otherwise like pretty default looking hud and some bland text during map navigation.

P.S. I failed to include it anywhere above, but its pet peeve of mine that a lot of racing game reviews dont talk about nitro system, like its just a difference whatever game has one or doesnt. So i wanted to talk about it even if in such removed isolated way.
Well there isnt much to talk about, its pretty basic implementation. Its auto charges with time and drifting also charges it. I find it pretty lackluster, it doesnt encourage a play style like lets say Burnout making you put yourself in dangerously or Motorstom making you put yourself on edge and consider enviorment about heat/cooling. There are parts of the tracks that charge it faster making you try to drive on that line, but i think it speaks more to how nicely designed stage gimmicks are and not nitro system itself.
There was like one track with hazard that your nitro bar bleed, so there is also that.
There are some cars that actually have different nitro system, instead of bar you can depleet at any moment you have a bunch of circles that you give you a continues boost upon pressing a button kinda like Hotshot Racing. (reminds me that Hotshot Racing is really cool game).
But because of beforementioned issues with the game progression i didnt really use them much and didnt have much reason to the lower stats aside from that one time to clear a lock on the map.
Use case is more interesting i guess, like amount of air control you can have and how you use nitro boosting to fly over parts of the track

I remember being weirdly hyped for this when it was fully announced and it felt rewarding to get a licensed game with some level of care and passion put into it. The gameplay is solid, the lineup of cars makes the inner 7-year-old in me froth at the mouth, and the amount of customization in there makes my head spin. However, loot boxes, not great online and heavy reliance on DLC is pretty much what killed long-term interest. And now that the sequel is out and is pretty much agreed to be the superior game, there really isn't a need to return to this one.

Hot Wheels Unleashed is a mix of arcade and realistic racer with a very strong toy aesthetic. Cars and tracks are creative and fun to drive on, and track modularity means that even new tracks feel very fair. Some of the more outlandish obstacles can be frustrating, but they are utilized judiciously. The PS5 controller haptics and graphical capabilities are both used to great effect. There is a surprisingly high skill ceiling that forced me to leave a few time attack challenges half-done, but overall it was very satisfying to play through the story mode.

Unlocking new cars requires the use of an obnoxious loot box mechanism that becomes progressively more irritating. Combined with the fact that all pay-to-play add-ons are prominently displayed at all times, it makes the game feel like a cheap gateway to encourage spending rather than a solid foundation for expansions. That's setting aside the fact that the whole game is essentially a giant commercial for brand name toy cars.

Still, there's a really fun 10-15 hours included with the base game that make it completely worthwhile. I just wish it wasn't psychologically manipulative and bloated by corporate greed.