Hot Wheels Unleashed

[Maf]

So I've been playing this over the past couple of weekends and just done the first boss race. I'm surprised that this game is as difficult as it is. It's not super hard, and very few races have I needed to restart to win, but it's certainly not what I would call an easy game. You have to work for these wins.

 

I'm only playing on Medium Difficulty as well and this can be some very focused, controller gripping shit. I think it works to keep the game fun and making me want to play more but I'm surprised at just quite how hard it is. It's not Dark Souls or nothing but in terms of racing games, especially a game based on Hot Wheels. Yeah, caught off guard a little. 

 

I don't think this game is amazing by any means but I do quite like it. Far and away the best thing about it is the track design. It's really wild with all the loops, big jumps and the size of the tracks. It's not as crazy as say a F-Zero, it's not in that league. But it leans more that way which was another surprise to me.

 

It takes a few races to warm up but some of these tracks are really inventive. Sometimes you race over a hill, or around a loop and see other racers underneath and it hits how big and crazy these tracks are. I think what's also really smart/lucky with the idea of this game is the tracks are made out of all the same pieces, which makes sense because it's a racing game based on toys. So what that allows for is using the same pieces of track to be combined in bigger and crazier ways with probably not that extra development work having to make each bit of the track bespoke. It means they also lose out aesthetically (From what I've seen so far), because it's the same pieces of track. But overall I think it's a win and allows a game that probably had a significantly smaller budget than most racers to go kinda wild with their shit. 

 

The thing I dislike most about the game is the physics, specifically the crash physics. Going back to difficulty the drifting in this game is much harder than I thought it would be and it's taken me maybe about an hour + to mostly get it down, while still bumping in to walls on most corners when trying to drift. I've got better at it but it's hard. The game also has a lot of air control where the left stick controls direction and the right stick lets the car roll in the air. This is also tricky but not too bad. I got used to this fast. What I'm struggling with is the crash physics. It's the racing game equivalent to rag doll. A small bump can just make the car flip out, fly of course. If boosting while crashing you're about to lose so many places. It's really annoying. Crashing is annoying at the best of times but it feels like a different game when it's spinning out or tumbling upside down. I really don't like this at all and it's the big, heavy downside to this game so far. It's honestly like car ragdoll. 

 

Overall I really like this game. Tracks are the highlights, a surprisingly decent challenge, the cars are pretty cool. Although I'm using the dragon one which seems like the best car in the game and they give it to you right off the bat so that's helped out a lot. It's a shame I've ended up with the Xbox One version and not the SX version because the draw distance, pop in and general 1080p (I'm guessing) quality lets it down. But still a decent looking game. My only real downside is the crash physics. It's so fucking weird. 

 

The last thing I guess and I don't know how the game can solve this, is it's just a bit boring. There's no power ups/weapons like I thought they'd be like a Mario Kart. The drifting and boosting mechanics are clearly Burnout inspired but it doesn't have that excitement at all. Maybe because you can't crash other cars. As fun as the tracks are and the difficulty help keeps it engaging, it's just missing something from the mixture. It's a decent game, but also kind of no thrills, plays very normal kind of game. Which is odd for a game aimed at children. I thought they'd be more exciting stuff going on. 

 

Metacritic has it about a 7/10 and after a couple of hours I think that's where I would fall too. It's a mild 7. It's good, but could do with being spicier. 

[DisturbedSwan]

There’s a trial for this on PS+ Premium, just thought I’d mention it.

[Maf]

Why is the crashing in this game so violent? 😆

 

It’s just car racing rag doll. What else would you call it?

 

 

Also I looked up the trophy guide for this game and it’s so grindy. The guide reckons 40 hours of multiplayer to try reach 100,000 coins. Uh-huh. Won’t be doing that.

[AndyKurosaki]

I enjoyed my first few hours with this. But then I hit a brick wall with the difficulty, and kinda lost interest.

[Maf]

I just had one of the best races I’ve had in a game for a long time. It was one of the 5 boss battles in the game and the track had mini whirlwinds on it.
 

The mini tornadoes go horizontally across the track and getting caught in one not only stops the car dead but can also leave the car facing the wrong direction. Add to the fact the bosses in this game are mean. They’re really good AI and there’s no rubber banding on them getting ahead of you. If you lose them, you lose them. 

So in a race where traps can stop the car dead - oh, yeah - but don’t affect the boss at all they can race right through. It was 3 laps of making absolute no mistakes.

 

My first few attempts I was cussing this shit out. It took me a moment to realise I’m actually having a tonne of fun, I’m just really invested. But I was swearing a lot because this was super intense and took a lot of focus.

 

I can’t believe the level of challenge this game can be. In a Hot Wheels game. This game has lots of odd decisions, but one of them I keep asking is who is this game for? This is not a kids racing game, it’s way too hard for that. But it can be fun.
 

The tracks in this game keep blowing me away as well. They’ve done a super good job with this, they’re the highlight of the game.

 

The physics are still bullying me, though. Look at this little tap. I did not deserve this

 

 

[Maf]

What the fuck is this car doing? 😆

 

 

 

I’ve got two more time trials and 10 more races to beat the “story mode” and then I’m done with this game I can’t do it no more 

 

EDIT: I give up, I give up, game. You win 😆

 

 

[Maf]

100% story mode today and got most of the achievements. The only 3 left are grind heavy ones for get top 3 in a race 100 times, get 100,000 coins and get 25,000 gears.

 

I kind of fucked up and didn't realise gears would be harder to get than coins and was selling my cars for cash instead of scrapping them for materials. I think if i had scrapped all cars from the start I would have got this. Now I'm in this weird manipulate the economy fight with the game where every common car I scrap gives me 50 gears, every time I get 700 gears upgrade a common car to a legendary car so when I scrap that it gives me 200 gears instead. 

 

But I'm now out of everything. Out of coins, out of gears, out of cars. 

 

I think from here I will try to log in every day, play some multiplayer to get these podiums, complete the free daily battle pass challenges to level that up and get more coins and gears. The pay out on these is not bad but the grinding for each level is mad. 

 

Or I will just check the fuck out and find a different thing to waste my life on. Depends how much that achievement bar not reading at 100% annoys me. 

 

Overall I like this game quite a bit. They just really needed to sort the crash physics out, maybe make the game slightly easier, and have some different scenery. The game looks repetitive. 

 

But I like this game, it's good 

[Maf]

 

Done. The online in this game is super violent. Because the physics are so brutal everyone is trying to just nudge each other as they pass and it’s all it takes to go flying off the track. Thankfully most people are really bad at handling the physics as well so more than likely they’ll go flying off the track too so wins are still possible even if getting destroyed in the beginning.

 

It’s sort of annoying, but also kind of hilarious how toxic a game about Hot Wheels can be. 

[spatular]

Been waiting for this to be cheap, its currently in the monthly humble choice thing so signed up for a month then canceled.

[spatular]

I gave this a go for a few hours and never really got on with it. Its really hard like people say so was playing on easy, trying to get used to the handling, i could mostly get around without hitting too much stuff, but even when getting a corner right it didnt feel very satisfying to me. Wasnt a bad game mind, if id been watching something good on netflix at the same time or something id have probably stuck with it more. Maybe ill give it another try at some point.