Hot Wheels Unleashed [Xbox]
If you’ve ever played with Hot Wheels cars in your life, then no doubt you had massive, elaborate tracks planned out in your head - over and above the orange plastic ones you’d built. And what started out as only a couple of cars probably snowballed into becoming an accidental collection; picking up any cute or awesome designs you’d come across in the supermarket toy aisles. At least, that’s our experience with Hot Wheels. Our kids have a huge box of cars collected over the years, in a variety of designs ranging from basic stock car models, to wacky skeletal designs and pop-culture references, and whilst they did get their fair share of playtime, these cars have now been mostly relegated into a box under the bed.
With the launch of Hot Wheels Unleashed, the joy of unlocking such a vast selection of cars - particularly when you gain one you already own in real life - awakened the nostalgia deep inside us. It’s an arcade style racing game, absolutely filled to the brim with cars to collect, trophies to win and decorations to customise your own little home with. The campaign mode, City Rumble, is set across a good-sized city, with different Quick Races, Time Attacks, Secrets and more. There are a few different level designs, ranging from the Basement, to the Garage to even in a Skyscraper, and each of these look gorgeous with detailed brickwork, furniture, and city skyline views that really emphasise the scale of your tiny vehicle flying round corners and pulling off jumps - you can even attempt a barrel roll, if you’re brave enough! You can play alone or split-screen with a friend, working your way through the City Rumble, or play online multiplayer via Quick Matches, where each player can vote on which track to take on, and completing matches will net you some coins.
The controls are really well done, with different stats for each vehicle to give pros and cons to each depending on the tracks you’re racing. You’ve got different panels along tracks, such as Boost Pads to fill your boost meter (which will also fill up by drifting), and the usual green panels to give you a sharp speed increase. Levels will have various hazards for you to avoid - or boop your opponents into - and learning when to pull your handbrake for a perfect drift is crucial in shaving those seconds off your time. There are a few Boss Races for you to take on, and these offer up quite the challenge, with Boss monsters causing traps along the way, including a giant spider that will catch you in its web and a yeti that will cause ice to appear on the track - as well as much tougher AI cars to beat.
The loot box mechanic is great here, with different cars available to be unlocked through blind boxes that you’ll gain through playing, as well as individual cars that can be purchased with coins you’ll earn in races - whether in City Rumble or Multiplayer. Cars can be upgraded to improve them by spending Gears, and you can also dismantle any cars you don’t need to gain additional gears to spend. The coins you earn can be spent on Blind Boxes at 500 a pop, and individual vehicles that refresh after a limited period are also available to purchase, starting at 500 coins but rising steeply for the rarer designs, although these can be found in blind boxes for a fraction of the cost - but at random.
The developers have done an extraordinary job here with the visuals, that perfectly blend the toy-car aesthetic with fantastically designed tracks that loop and twist through various locations. Despite only having a few different areas that tracks are set up, the tracks themselves change between races, keeping things fresh and exciting. Tracks have that classic look, with orange pieces that click together, and stickers peeling off the edges and even some magnetic tracks to let you drive upside down, and there’s a Track Builder where you can come up with your own thrilling races. You’ll unlock new pieces over time to create bigger and better tracks - and live out your childhood dreams - because I can’t be the only one that was awful at creating decent tracks as a kid with the limited number of track pieces I owned. The cars look amazing, with designs that really pop - and you’ve even got the ability to create your own personalised designs via the extensive Livery Editor, to create cars in different finishes, as well as alter their look using stickers and changing up the colours.
Another great addition is including the ability to publish your designs for others to download, and being able to browse others’ designs, too - this was something we loved about games such as ModNation Racers, the only downside being you can only save up to 100 for each vehicle, so you’ll have to reign yourself in! The soundtrack is super catchy, and there’s a decent variety of tracks that all have that arcade vibe to them, and they seamlessly blend from one to the next.
Sadly, Hot Wheels Unleashed is not a Smart Delivery enabled game when it comes to Xbox. This makes the purchase pages (whether you’re going for physical or digital) a bit of a minefield, with the Xbox Store currently having six versions available for purchase:
Xbox One base version, Xbox One Collector’s Edition, Xbox One Ultimate Stunt Edition.
Series X|S base version, Series X|S Collector’s Edition, Series X|S Ultimate Stunt Edition.
What’s even more frustrating, is that this splitting of versions - and having no Smart Delivery - seems to have been a relatively pointless endeavour, as these titles are priced the same regardless of which generation of console you have. The Season Pass is also awkwardly split, which is no doubt going to add a lot of confusion for players. We’re playing on Xbox Series X, however the review code we received is an Xbox One code - so if we choose to go for the Season Pass, presumably we should go for Xbox One, despite playing on Series X *head explodes*
There’s customisation all throughout the game, from customising cars and tracks, to planning out every tiny detail of your Basement; from the wallpaper, to the artwork on the walls and your display cabinets and gaming setup, and all of this is super fun to just sink some time into, and feels satisfying to unlock new options to get everything looking exactly as you’d like. Overall we had a great time with Hot Wheels Unleashed, but feel that the Multiplayer could be expanded upon, as the Quick Races are fast to join (although you might have a bit of a wait for it to load up all of the players), but there’s not really anything much to get you to keep going back aside from to grind some coins. It definitely feels like the City Rumble is the focus, with Multiplayer just being a little side-dish to the main course. Having a few different multiplayer modes available would have given the online a little bit more longevity, like a demolition derby mode - why haven’t we got a demolition derby more!? or some kind of Ramp Mode to see how far you can get your cars to jump. Hopefully we see more being added in the future, but as it is - we’ve still had a lot of fun with Hot Wheels Unleashed - it’s an exquisitely detailed and well polished game - so we would highly recommend you check it out if you’re looking for an enjoyable arcade racer.
In the end, we decided to give Hot Wheels Unleashed the Collecting Asylum rating of 9/10.
Have you played Hot Wheels Unleashed yet? What did you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to Koch Media for the Hot Wheels Unleashed Xbox review code!
