Hot Wheels Unleashed Review: Top Notch Toy Box

[Famine]

This is the discussion thread for an article on GTPlanet:

Hot Wheels Unleashed Review: Top Notch Toy Box​

On our long list of “things we weren’t expecting to read” this year was renowned Italian motorbike simulator developer Milestone being the studio behind a toy car game...

 

[TheEvstar93]

I pre-ordered it for the Switch last night. I'm looking forward to playing this one. It might keep me going until GT7 arrives.

 

[kjb]

Good review @Famine ! Very thorough and informative

 

[Famine]

Just for clarity, I bloody love this game - I just don't love having 80% of the car content sold separately (and the online really is barebones and mince right now).

 

[kjb]

Just for clarity, I bloody love this game - I just don't love having 80% of the car content sold separately (and the online really is barebones and mince right now).

I understand that. I don't like the RNG aspect of manner of getting new cars. That is kind of sucky but overall I'm not really getting this for me. It's for the children ( and me just too. but officially if for the kids)👍

 

[Famine]

I understand that. I don't like the RNG aspect of manner of getting new cars. That is kind of sucky but overall I'm not really getting this for me. It's for the children ( and me just too. but officially if for the kids)👍

There's also a revolving shop - I think it refreshes every three hours - that carries five cars that you can buy with in-game coins. So far I've seen it holding three HW at 500 and two real ones at 1,200 each time, and it doesn't take long to get that many coins.

In fact I bought the Total Disposal for the comparison shot from there

 

[binbin90]

I wish you can still do stunts......last Hotwheels game I played was Turbo Racing on the PS1. Fun game! XD

 

[LeGeNd-1]

Seems like a good game but the lootbox and microtransactions irked me to no end. Buying the most expensive version doesn't even get you all season passes, and you still have to purchase the racing seasons (which has exclusive time limited rewards) separately. AAA money for mobile game mechanics? No thanks, I'll buy this when it's on a massive discount.

That said, Milestone will be adding some cars for free in updates, and the 66 cars you get at the start is enough to be getting on with. This is aided by the fact you can dismantle duplicates to upgrade your favorites (though do be careful with this…), and there’s a full livery editor included.

Can you elaborate more on this @Famine?

 

[Famine]

Can you elaborate more on this @Famine?

It changes the boost levels, and not always for the better. Going from Common to Rare largely seems to be fine - you gain a boost in most cases - but some Rare to Legendary upgrades completely change it.

One I looked at yesterday would have changed it from four small boosts to one, and given the reliance on boosts for lap time (and for recovering from slamming into an outside wall, or straightening up for a ramp), that's a bit of a downside.

 

[mwoodski]

I'm gonna pick this up after more real life cars are added I think.

 

[EngieDiesel]

I have to admit the track editor is where my main interest lies, and from what I've seen from reviews and early access videos it's right in line with what I was wanting from this game. I'm not too stressed about the random car unlocks since that's not too unusual for an arcade racer, and frankly I kinda like it for this setting since I'd otherwise just be falling into the trap of grinding easy races for hours to buy the "best" car and then end up ignoring the rest of them.

All told, it's looking like this will be my go to "pick up and play" game for the winter.

 

[ICEYOU3]

I'm getting my copy after work tomorrow, so far the game's reception has been very positive. Looking forward to it.

 

[EngieDiesel]

It changes the boost levels, and not always for the better. Going from Common to Rare largely seems to be fine - you gain a boost in most cases - but some Rare to Legendary upgrades completely change it.

One I looked at yesterday would have changed it from four small boosts to one, and given the reliance on boosts for lap time (and for recovering from slamming into an outside wall, or straightening up for a ramp), that's a bit of a downside.

Having played some, it seems that the compensation for losing boosts is that they recharge faster during jumps and drifts. I upgraded the Street Manga car that came with the preorder bonus and that took it from three boosts down to two, but those two fill up noticably quicker than the original three did. So it's not necessarily a downgrade all the time, depending on your driving style.

I would certainly say that switching a car from bar to circle style boost is a straight upgrade though, as the bar style boost seems to always be horribly slow to recharge no matter what.

 

[Bornin1980s]

The online race seasons, have they started yet?

 

[Youngfei]

Hot Wheels? This brings a lot of good memories, to be honest. I was essentially obsessed with them, but my parents weren't able to afford them during those times. Now, I'm able to get every single toy that I haven't got when I was a kid. Besides Hot Wheels, dragons were my favourite thing to look at, draw them or play with them. It was the same story here and now I've bought some figurines from https://dragon-vibe.com/ in order to start a collection. I'm sure that everyone knows the feeling of finally being able to afford a thing or two that you've always wanted to have.