Hot Wheels has been one of the best-selling toy brands for decades, whether it’s kids or collectors buying them. The brand has crossed over into the medium of video games numerous times over the years, with one of the best easily being 2021’s Hot Wheels Unleashed (read our review of it here). Fresh off the success of that game, developer Milestone is back on the classic orange-colored track once again with the sequel titled Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged.
Back to Childhood
What made the first Hot Wheels Unleashed game so fun was the creative design of the tracks that you were able to race upon, mixed with the well-designed racing mechanics. Both of them are back once again in Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged with gameplay that should not feel too different from anybody who played the first game.
There have been countless different variations of Hot Wheels released over the years. While there was no way that anywhere near all of them could be included in the game, Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged still manages to include a solid number of vehicles to choose from with over 130 available at launch. Many of these vehicles are based on real-life vehicles that have been released as Hot Wheels, including a 2010 Aston Martin DBS and a ’55 Chevy. There are also plenty of Hot Wheels exclusive vehicles, like one of my personal favorites, the Veloci-Racer.
Like the first game, there are also some tie-in properties found in the game with the DeLorean from Back to the Future, KITT from Knight Rider, the Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Widebody from Fast & Furious, and even a vehicle based on Snoopy’s doghouse. These vehicles are obtained through one of two ways, either from purchasing in the shop or using up tokens you earn on a wheel spin in the game’s Hot Wheels Spin section. I really loved that the game had zero microtransactions related to the purchase of cars, as coins are very plentiful in the game and you can continually purchase vehicles from a rotating selection through the in-game shop.
Players who are not satisfied with the stock version of each vehicle can also give them a boost or customize their design. By using the in-game currency or special tokens you collect in the game, you can upgrade a car from Stock to the Powered and eventually Ultimate tiers. Each of them also has skills underneath them that you can spend skill tokens on to obtain and equip for that specific vehicle. The majority of these boosts also come at the cost of some other vehicle stat though, so be forewarned before equipping everything you can. You also have the ability to completely change the color, material, and more for each vehicle through the use of liveries for those who are really feeling creative.
There are five track locations that you can choose from, including the Backyard, Mini Golf Course, Arcade Room, Gas Station, and Dinosaur Museum. From there, each of them also has 10 track variations that can actually differ quite a lot from one another other than being placed upon the standardized location. I really enjoyed playing through the different stages, though some of them can start to seem a little too familiar after driving on them continuously.
Not Fixing What Isn’t Broken
Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged certainly does not reinvent the wheel when it comes to your controls, as it has the majority of the staples for your typical arcade racer. The right trigger serves as the gas, and the left trigger serves as the brake, which are two buttons you will be utilizing quite often thanks to the winding tracks found in the game. You also have access to a boost via a boost meter, which can be presented in one of two ways depending on the vehicle you are driving. These can either be a normal meter or a series of hexagonal icons, both of which operate in a similar fashion. Most arcade racers allow you to get a jump at the start of the race by timing the pressing of your gas pedal, but here, you can start the match with a certain amount of boost meter filled based on your timing instead. You also have the ability to jump and double jump as well, which is an uncommon feature for a racing game but fits perfectly with Hot Wheels.
The tracks themself have some notable features as well that can help you get to the finish line quicker, including trails that let you build more of your boost meter or some trails that outright speed you up as long as you are driving over them. There are also different circular icons you can run over that do different things, including the blue boost charger, the green boost trigger, and the two purple jump or flip jumpers. Each of them helps in different ways and sometimes can be necessary to get over certain chasms in a track.
As to be expected with any racer like this, drifting also plays a large part in the racing experience for those who want to compete at a high level. By successfully drifting around curves, you can build up your boost meter, which also works well in tandem with the drift mechanic to make your way around the more hard-to-navigate curves and turns in the game. This is the ideal way to gain an advantage over your competition, so it is wise to learn early how to best utilize the drift mechanic.
Many of the tracks also include obstacles that are trying to keep you from completing them, including large gaps to jump over, barriers, spiderwebs, poison and ice spots, and even ghosts. There are even some larger obstacles like the fire-emitting dinosaur tails, boulder-dropping machines, or even a simple boulder rocking back and forth across your pathway on a rope. These are rarely all that difficult to avoid, but hitting one can certainly hinder your progress. The nice thing is that if one of these knocks you off the track, you can hold down the respawn button to respawn at the last checkpoint. This becomes very handy on some of the more intricate courses as there are some jumps that can be a bit tricky to master the first time through. It did feel like some of these jumps were not designed as well as they could have been though, so be prepared for some frustration when it comes to some of them.
Drift Racer
Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged offers single-player or two-player split-screen options for offline play, along with the ability to play online with one player. Single-player gives you five different game modes to choose from, which include Quick Race, Time Attack, Drift Master, Elimination, and Waypoint, while two-player lets you pick from all except Time Attack. Quick Race is the general race mode with 12 total race cars on the course at one time vying to finish first. Time Attack is a one-vehicle experience where the goal is simply to reach the finish line as fast as you can.
The first of the more unique game modes is the all-new Drift Master, which gives you one lap around the course, and the goal is to rack up as many points drifting as possible. There is no points system in a regular race, but here, you get points every time you drift and try to build the multiplier. This can get pretty difficult though, as the multiplier resets and the point total for each successful drift stops once you hit anything with your vehicle. The multiplier meter also gradually reduces when you are not actively drifting, so it can be hard to really get high scores until you really learn how to master the art of drifting. This was definitely my most frustrating game mode to start with, but I actually started to really have a lot of fun with it also helped improve my overall drifting in regular races as well.
Elimination races are essentially the same as any Quick Race, except there is a twist. Every few seconds, a timer will appear on the screen and start counting down. When the timer reaches zero, the bottom one or more racers at that time will be eliminated. This continues until it gets down to the final three, and it counts down to eliminate the racers in second and third place. Unlike the Quick Races that give you a lot more margin for error early on in the race, you cannot play around, or you will get eliminated before you know it here.
Lastly, Waypoint races have you navigating more of the ground level of each locale instead of the more elevated tracks you are accustomed to driving on. The goal here is to look for the blue-shining cylinder that the arrow is pointing to and run into it, which then unlocks the next blue light elsewhere. These must be hit in an exact order, and the race is only concluded when you hit the very last one. I really had a lot of fun with these, as it was pretty neat to see more of the actual locations like the Mini Golf Course and Arcade Room that you usually only saw from up above outside of some small ground sections in the other tracks.
Anyone who played the first game and its City Rumble mode will find the new one’s single-player story campaign titled Hot Wheels Creature Rampage very familiar, as five giant creatures are, once again, running rampant and causing terror. This prompts the Hot Wheels Racing team of Professor Tanabe, Darla, Robert, and the Claptrap soundalike robot XRO46 to go and stop them by shrinking them down to toy size and taking them down before they can do too much damage. The story is as basic as it gets, with most people eventually getting to the point of just wanting to skip through the game’s 16 cutscenes. These cutscenes aren’t even fully animated, using 2D character images over a static background instead.
Hot Wheels Creature Rampage features a world map that is split into five regions, which include a Tropical Island, the Tundra, and eventually the City Center. Unfortunately, the locales are simply for the world map rather than the actual races found in them, as they are instead relegated to one of the five different stage locations. The world map is filled with eight different space types that you can move to and take part in or activate, including one for each of the five aforementioned race types available in the game, as well as challenge spaces, bonus spaces, and the Boss Races that are always found at the end of each region of the map.
The Boss Races seem like they could be a lot of fun at first, but unfortunately, they falter midway through the race due to repetition. Each one of these races has the exact same goal, continually hit the special targets found in the course one after another until you reduce the boss’s HP to 0. After hitting each target, the boss’s rage meter will start to fill up, and you must hit the next target to reset the meter before it overfills and the boss becomes victorious. The first battle against the Octopus was rather fun and was a nice way to introduce the Boss Races. However, the four remaining races are handled the exact same way outside of being on different courses. Nothing changes other than the target occasionally being elevated to where you have to jump for it, making these races become ones you don’t even look forward to after the first few. While the regular races themselves can get a little monotonous, like any racer, it’s really disappointing they could not have added new elements into each of the five Boss Races to make them stand apart from one another.
You almost can’t have a successful Hot Wheels game without some sort of trackmaker, as that has always been one of the most fun parts of playing with actual Hot Wheels. The Track Builder found within Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged allows you to pick from each of the five-track locations you have access to in the rest of the game, as well as a simplistic Track Room. From here, you can create your own track using the different parts that make up other tracks in the game. I actually thought this could have used a much better tutorial system to start with, as it was really confusing on how to get started. Once I got the hang of it, though, I really started to have a lot of fun building my own insane courses to play through. Similar to a game like Super Mario Maker, you have to validate your course by completing one lap of it yourself before you can unload it, but then anyone else can try it online if you manage to build one you feel is worthy enough.
Verdict
Playing with physical Hot Wheels was always a blast as a kid, and now playing Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged really recaptures a lot of that same magic. Much of what is found in this sequel is built upon the ground that was laid by the first game, but now it is bigger and better. The Creature Rampage mode is the one really disappointing aspect of the game, as the almost non-existent story could have been handled much better, and the boss battles are the very definition of lackluster. Thankfully, this is very much offset by the increase in the number of different and unique vehicles, the fun new track locations, and the overall enjoyability of the racing that makes Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged such a pleasure to play.
Score: 8.5/10
Pros:
- There are more than 130 vehicles to choose from
- Feels like playing with actual Hot Wheels
- Versatile game modes to keep you interested
Cons:
- The single-player story is very uninspired
- Boss Races are repetitive and monotonous
- Some jumps can be more frustrating than they should be
Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged review code was provided by the publisher. You can read MP1st’s review and scoring policy right here.
