When this was first announced, there was only one thing on my mind regarding it. That track creator. The possibilities I hoped it would hold. What looked to be something similar to how you create rollercoasters in Planet Coaster, but for a racetrack instead. What a lovely powerful tool that would be. But would it happen? And would the driving mechanics be good enough to warrant sticking with the creator in the first place?
Well, I’m happy to say that both points did happen. Starting out, you’ll be gifted three starting cars, then be put onto the tutorial race which will teach you the basics of the game. Accelerate during the transition of three to two during the countdown to build up a boost, use the boost when needed, and drift around corners to speed up the boost regeneration. Despite the drifting being awkward to get used to, it functions fine.
As for why it feels awkward, there’s definitely a more simcade handling model here than a true arcade one. Take Cruis’n Blast and its drifting. With skill, you can keep a drift going for the entire race. With Hot Wheels Unleashed, that’s not possible at all. You have to be aware of the speed you’re going, and while tapping the brake is all that’s needed to initiate a drift, careful management of both direction and speed is needed to make sure you manage to keep that drift going and not bump into the sides of walls or off the track.
There’s also a massive amount of in-air control you have for when your wheels aren’t touching the floor. Much like how flight control works in those games, the left stick controls the direction you point with flips and spins while the right stick controls the roll of the vehicle you use. Despite the looping, twisty nature of the tracks in the game, these in-air controls are barely needed beyond managing to pull off some sneaky shortcuts. I’m sure player creations will bring a lot of use for such controls, since that track creator is a powerful tool.
Before I get there, it’s best to talk of the official tracks and what you can be doing in the game beyond creating. The main meat of the solo experience is the City Rumble mode. With this mode, you have a board set out much like one of those old playmats for kids that would have a map design on them, with numerous branching paths all leading to a final area. You have races and time trials to complete to be able to progress and face off against the bosses – which are just longer races with some themed obstacles related to that boss. There’s also a few secrets that will block access to certain areas until you solve them.
The AI in the races can be funny things. On easy, they can be passed pretty quickly, though it seems they are always waiting ready for you to make a mistake. They can also make mistakes, though, which does make for some cat and mouse based action depending on your skill. On harder difficulties, the same also applies, but with less room for error.
The time trials, however, offer little room for error no matter the difficulty you have set. Times don’t change depending on difficulty, so you need to really know the track and trust in the vehicle you’re using to pass the regular time. The Unleashed times don’t need to be completed to make progression, which is a good thing as they can feel impossible for those who might lack the skills to push the limits of what these tracks ask of you.
The easy tracks are nice and pleasant to race around, with just a few trickier moments to navigate. Then things build up until you’re facing things such as tight corners, fans pushing you off the track, and blind outward twists that can send the unaware flying. There’s also random elements involved with the interactive pieces.
A spider shooting webs that can trap vehicles for a few seconds, a snake snapping its jaw shut and blocking the way forward until it opens. Split paths that force racers in a certain direction – whether from a dragon breathing fire or a suspension bridge raising and lowering. And even without such random elements, it’s still a gamble of which route is best as not all of them are created equal.
The visuals and design are lovely, with the track pieces reflecting the light just as you expect, creating a nice glossy sheen on them. Dark places feel dark without distracting too much from being able to see where you’re going. And the vehicles all look realistic, created in-game exactly as you would expect to see them in real life. They even get life-like wearing on them throughout each race.
The environments these tracks are built around similarly have a great look to them, and while barely used in the races, offer a nice change of road surface when they do. There’s only a few of them, but there’s variety to each of them. They also allow the lighting to shine that bit more, with races on the construction site able to feel the sudden change of intense light that taking the race fully outdoors brings. It’s such a joy to just drink those environments in, which is possible thanks to the photo mode.
Just pause the game and head into the photo mode, and you can take a snapshot of the action by directly moving the camera to where you want it to be. There’s also a number of effects that can be applied to alter the mood of the photos, with the option of removing effects and other racers from view to focus on just your own vehicle. All screenshots you see throughout this review have been taken by me, keeping the settings at their default.
The game is Hot Wheels, so collecting is a part of the game. It’s a weaker part of the game, since it’s mostly down to chance, but still brings a moment of joy when you get something new. After buying (or being rewarded from City Rumble) a Blind Box, you can open them one at a time to see what vehicle is inside. Sometimes luck is on your side, and sometimes you’ll get four Twin Mills in a row. But the duplicates can be sold for a generous amount, or scrapped to get gears – which are used for upgrading the vehicles.
Along with the random chance boxes, there is a limited selection shop. This gives five vehicles to buy, with the selection changing each in-game four hours. It pays to keep checking, as you might just find a vehicle you really want within that selection that will probably take an age to come through those random chance boxes. I may have got the Back to the Future DeLorean from random chance, but I want my Mini, and I will not rest until I get it!
And now, we get to the track creator and the… here’s the thing. It works great. You can create a winding, twisty road that offers a difficult challenge, complete with plenty of random elements and split paths for that maze-like effect. The limit for the length of the race is pretty generous. If you want to utilise the environments more than the official tracks do, that’s possible to achieve.
What isn’t possible is going truly off-track. To do so, you need to use the invisible track pieces, which guide the race to the next visible piece of track. There’s plenty of opportunity for trolling with it, and plenty of scope to do some truly great things off-track, but the creator is focused purely on the track you are laying down. At no opportunity can you truly go off it in order to guide or restrict where racers can go when off-track.
It’s a great track creator even with such limitations, with some truly crazy creations already able to be raced on in time attack. But that is where the game is most limited. It might change with up update in the weeks or months ahead, but as it presently stands, for both the track creator and livery editor, the only way to access all things user created are the lists for each that simply show the tracks or liveries in order of when they were last shared. From the main menu, you can see your own tracks and liveries. But you cannot use them from that menu. They have to be shared to be able to access them.
It’s my one main gripe with the game. What use is all this creativity when the discoverability of it all is so limited. No accessing profiles to see what each individual person has created. No filters to sort by name, tags, or likes. Not even any form of liking or favouriting, or even searching by name. What point is there to create when it can’t be discovered easily?
Two random tracks will be pulled from the database for players to vote on in online racing along with three official tracks, but with no filtering based on likes, those tracks could either be completely great ones that people will want to vote on, or just straight lines that begin and end in seconds that no-one will ever touch. I can’t speak for private matches, but it seems unlikely you’d be able to put one of your own races up for voting or just outright selecting when everything else regarding them is so limiting.
Overall, it’s a great racing game with a few frustrating things. Races are always entertaining affairs, with mechanics that serve the racing well for both newer and experienced players. The livery and track editors have great depth to them, though options for sharing are limited at present.
With a variety of vehicles to collect, great graphics and visuals that really make it feel like you are racing toy cars through these environments and some good sound effects (though you might want to mute the music), I can easily recommend this to anyone who wants a great arcade racer. It might be a bit more simcade than true arcade in terms of mechanics, but Hot Wheels Unleashed is well worth a play. Though if you want to get it for the track creator, it might be worthwhile holding off until there’s better discoverability options in the game.
Images Taken From:
Hot Wheels Unleashed (Original Screenshots)
