2023 has been such a stellar year in gaming for nearly every genre and sub-genre that LEGO 2K Drive wasn’t even the only highly awaited toy car racer slated for it. Milestone wet their feet with the Hot Wheels property back in 2021, and it’s sequel time already. It’s time to get Unleashed – again!
Cool story, bro
“You know what Hot Wheels Unleashed needs? A story mode!”, said probably nobody ever. And yet, that is one of this sequels main additions. Okay, Hot Wheels is a property mainly aimed at young folks, but the plot doesn’t make much sense even applying a bit of suspension of disbelief. A genius scientist is experimenting with resizing creatures, and accidentally creates 5 dangerous kaijus that are wreaking havoc. So the natural solution to make them no longer dangerous is resizing them into extremely tiny creatures. But instead of stopping there, our young male and female protagonists have to… beat them by driving around them in small Hot Wheels cars, and to get there, they need to win multiple races against other toy cars first. While the general comic book style animations aren’t bad, they also don’t add anything to what is essentially the same format as the previous game.
Over the span of 5 chapters and as many boss battles, which are nothing but standard driving events where the player has to hit certain targets on the race track, the player is tasked to beat these miniaturized kaijus that are nothing else than generic track hazards. Aside from that, players will have to traverse top-down maps just like before, hopping from different events and challenges. While most of them can be completed in any car, some optional challenges and events enforce specific picks or limitations, providing a bit more variety so that the player can’t just always use their favourite car. In fairness, I’ve found there to be a handful of difficulty spikes, most notably in the drift events, which are a tad harder than the rest of the game from my experience. Nothing too bad, mind.
Tweakin’ and tunin’
Fortunately, this not particularly memorable story mode isn’t all the news this sequel has to offer, though the meat of it is how the game feels rather than what it actually offers in terms of features. It’s hard to put into words because you have to grab a controller to understand it, but Hot Wheels Unleashed 2 – Turbocharged (what a mouthful of a title, sheesh) feels better to drive. Drifting, powersliding, turning and all that feels smoother and even more arcade-y, making it easier to stick to the optimal line lap after lap. The game also retains the smart turbo mechanics from the first title, whereas drifting, drafting and collecting boosts makes it easy to pretty much hold down the extra speed boost almost the entire lap, as we traverse the colourful plastic tracks made of straights, turns, loops, traps and so on.
Of course, Unleashed 2 also retains the extremely toy-like, so to speak plastic physics of the previous game. While cars are fast and fairly easy to control as if it were Mario Kart or other similarly accessible racing games, these cars are still made of light plastic like the real life Hot Wheels cars they mimic. That means that turning too hard into a corner or clipping an edge too fast can legitimately send the car flying like it used to happen to our plastic cars in real life, keeping a level of risk not normally found in such arcade racers. With the game featuring a jump button that you can activate via sacrificing some boost, and many tracks effectively featuring obstacles that have to be jumped, there needs to be a level of attention closer to “serious” racers at times. If you’re looking at Unleashed 2 for your kid however, don’t be scared: there’s various difficulty settings, with the Easy one featuring extremely forgiving AI.
A bit of this and a bit of that
This sequel also features a larger variety of game modes, most of which are also featured heavily in the campaign. These range from regular races, elimination events where every couple seconds the last placed driver is thrown out of the fight, drift events, time trials and then some. While the core gameplay never really changes drastically, as it’s all about mastering the insane twists and turns of each track, there’s plenty of modes to do that in, albeit no real new ideas are found aside from the previously mentioned rather and rather underwhelming boss fights.
Much of the Hot Wheels experience is also the actual collection of these shiny little plastic toy cars, and that is definitely the case in the videogame as well. This is certainly a very meaty launch, with over 130 licensed Hot Wheels vehicles available from day one, and more to come in the future. These range from iconic ones like the Twin Mill, the Dragon Blaster, all the way down to IP crossovers with the likes of Fast X, Snoopy and more. The vehicle types as well offer more variety than the previous title, ranging from street racers, bikes, quads, 4x4s and even novelty cars. Judging by the previous’ games crazy crossovers, such as with DC or Barbie, it’s safe to expect even wilder collabs in future updates. The cars can pretty much all be unlocked, for now, via regular play, either by buying them with in-game credits in a rotating store or by the game’s lootbox-esque spin reward system. With each vehicle then that can be upgraded by adding all kinds of variations to their stats, on top of the customization of the look itself.
Ohhh, shiny!
It may seem like blasphemy to customize the iconic colour palettes, but the player can do just that, changing every pain colour, material, even applying stickers and more. It’s not quite as deep as what you’d find in the latest Forza Horizon or Need For Speed, but it gets the job done. More importantly, the level editor from the first game makes a comeback as well, with even more blocks and new environments to play with. And once again, the player can customize their own profile and private space by changing their banner, posters in their room and so on. As always, the game features free race modes, alongside local and online multiplayer alike, though I’ve not been able to test the quality of the latter out before launch.
In terms of graphics, the game absolutely delivers on Xbox Series X where I tested it. Vibrant lights via HDR, cars and tracks reflecting them realistically, excellent toy car models, vibrant colours, and most importantly an apparently very stable 60 frames per second all around. The game’s high speed and atypical look makes this one of the most interesting racers on the market from a visual point of view, with many elements really popping out of the screen on an OLED TV.
More of the same never hurt anybody
Hot Wheels Unleashed 2 – Turbocharged is an extremely safe, but ultimately very fun sequel. The new story mode doesn’t change the formula, but the new game modes, the tons of content and customization on top of an improved core gameplay make this an exhilarating racer for young and old.
Hot Wheels Unleashed 2 - Turbocharged
Played on
Xbox Series X
PROS
- The spirit of Hot Wheels is captured perfectly
- Improved core gameplay
- Lots of content with solid variety
- Wide array of toy cars with vastly different driving styles
- Looks gorgeous
CONS
- Uninspired new story mode with boring bosses
- Fairly small upgrade over the previous game
- Very safe game modes
Just when i thought i’d never see the “Honey i shrunk the kids!” Formula used again this game just came out of nowhere!
Would milestone be able to use their competent race based physics seen in sbk and motogp to make this game into a racing success? Lets find out.
I can’t help but think back to the times that I would sit in my living room with all of my matchbox cars all lined up. Playing with them while making car noises. Only to be interrupted by my parents saying something like “hey, You’re thirty years old, why don’t you move out and get a job!”
I was so surprised that this game felt like an actual racer with difficulty settings to accommodate the younger players.
Also, It was great to see that the cars would go flying in the air as if the were involved in a car crash.
Just as i was back in 2021 with my late father. I couldn’t forget his last words even if I tried. He said “Do you really think you should be driving this fast, you’ve had a fair bit to drink.
It’s times like that where this game shines!
In this extremely safe move by the developers (as safe as i should have been that faithful night) they have hit the mark again.
I give this game
8/10 drinks past the legal limit!
Great review guys!