My little boy loves hot wheels.
The house is littered with cars, tracks and other strange looking things that I
wouldn’t necessarily think belong in the hot wheels universe, but never the
less, there it is, lying on my floor just waiting for me to trip over it in the
middle of the night. The thing about it is, as the hot wheels toys were
getting stranger and stranger looking to me, it turns out that the toy line has
gone in a different direction with it’s "Highway 35" line. The toy series
is about a scientist who discovers an alternate dimension that was made by other
beings from another universe. This parallel dimension is a series of
strange gravity defying race courses. And of course the scientist designs
and builds a collection of super-cars that can handle the stresses and
impossible dimensions of these race tracks. Giving the cars to the worlds
greatest drivers, the scientist (Peter Tezla) has offered millions to the driver
who can take first place in what he has called "The World Race".
My initial impression of this game
was that it felt almost instantly like an arcade racing game. The controls
are very friendly and even massive mistakes can easily be made up on the games
courses as the speeds that these cars reach is quite impressive. The
control scheme is done quite well and the small comfortable GameCube controller
has a nice feel to it when steering and activating the power slide or the nitro
boost. This coupled with the games smooth flowing gameplay made playing
the first several races almost a little too easy.
Some gamers who like racing titles
will want to know if this game has the love it/hate it "auto-catch-up" feature.
Yes, it does, what this means is that no matter how badly you do, the other
racers (controlled by the GameCube) are never really that far off. Even if
you land a stunt so badly you end up on the roof of your vehicle, you can expect
to catch up with the pack (who’s racing at 165 mph) in mere seconds, if that
doesn’t sound too bad to you then think about this. You will never, ever
really beat your opponents, no matter how awesome you navigate a course, hitting
every boost line and landing every stunt perfectly, at least one of the computer
controlled cars will be a mere .05 hundredths of a second behind you.
Sure, you can win a race, but you can’t win a race kicking everyone else’s butt.
For those of you scoring at home, that means one tiny little mess up, could cost
you first place. This is a nice feature for younger gamers, but older
players may find this irritating, I wish there was an option to turn it on or
off.
One nice thing about the game is
that there is an absolute ton of hidden things to unlock. Some require you
to finish the race in a certain position, some are found by collecting items on
the track while racing and still others are unlocked by beating the different
leagues. In all, there are 35 cars to race with, providing you have found
and unlocked them all. A nice little collection for those gamers who have
to find everything a game has to offer. The tracks themselves are a nice
group of strange, twisting courses that have players racing through the clouds
or doing barrel rolls in a course that goes through space. I liked all of
the courses and actually found myself chuckling a couple of times when something
odd happened my way. And just so you know, many of the courses have
branching paths or jumps that are shortcuts, which allow you to move up a
position even quicker then the auto-catch-up can do. And sometimes, a
barrier will appear that wasn’t there on the previous lap, that stops you from
using the shortcut. A good idea because it always kept me on my feet.
Up to four players can play using
the split-screen option. Not my favorite way to multi-play, since the game
does go at a break neck speed, and by cutting your TV down into fourths, it can
be a bit frustrating as the horizon becomes that much more difficult to
navigate.
I liked the clean lines of the
graphics and the game certainly has vibrant colors on each of the levels, I
swear, on a couple of them I thought I was playing an old Sonic the Hedgehog
game from the Dreamcast. The game never suffers from lag or slowdown even when
there is a lot of action happening on the screen.
A good family title as there is no
violence and the cars never blow up or cause the driver any harm. Perfect
for the young hot wheel lover on your holiday list.
Gameplay: 8
Easy to use controls on an incredibly forgiving race course. This one is
easy for the little ones.
Graphics: 7.8
Just like the cartoon (yes, there is a cartoon) the game is bright and clean
with lots of strange places to race.
Sound: 7.0
The band Smashmouth has a song that is played for the game called "Hot", a
decent enough tune. The car sounds are a bit lacking though, I expected
more and got less.
Difficulty: Easy
It’s made for young gamers, I tore through the first two leagues in less then 90
minutes, and that was because I wanted to race a couple of courses more then
once because I liked how they played.
Concept: 8.4
I like the idea of a dimension of wild race courses and vehicles designed for
their rigors. I half expect another title to come out with the same idea
only grittier levels and maybe some combat thrown in.
Overall: 7.5
Like I said before, here is a good family title with fun race courses, tidy
graphics and race cars that your child can actually collect, since all the cars
in the game are also toys.
