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
- 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