A High-Octane Kid-Friendly Racer
Filed under “Things I Didn’t Know Until Now” is the fact that the source material for today’s game, Hot Wheels Let’s Race: Ultimate Speed, is apparently an animated series on Netflix.
I guess I’m not the target demographic for this series, but there’s no doubt BamTang Games and GameMill Entertainment have very deliberately set their stall out with the younger gamer in mind with this one. Being the designated driving game correspondent, that means Ultimate Speed has ended up on my virtual desk, so, can I extract some fun from the proceedings, or am I just too damn old?
Well, start up your motors, readers, we’re going to find out.
Orange Tracks, Great Speed
I’m obviously massively familiar with the world of Hot Wheels, mostly from playing several of their games before, the best of which was actually the expansion to Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels. The way the tracks swoop through the skies in that game is awesome.
Here, the tracks look just like you’d expect: orange track with lots of power ups and hazards to navigate. The cars are all iconic as well, featuring cars that I had heard of from my own childhood, like the Twin Mill, alongside newer ones like the Duck N’ Roll. The representations of the cars is very good, and they all look great in motion. That’s helped by the fact the action on offer is fast and furious, as you’d hope for from a racing game in the Hot Wheels universe, and the camera does a sterling job at keeping up with the action on screen. You’re never left in any doubt as to what is happening.
Of course, the racing is only one facet of the game, as there are other areas to discover, such as a hub level and track builder part, and here the graphics are equally good. The hub features all the characters from the Netflix series, and you can interact with them to your heart’s content.
Droning Engines and Dialogue Woes
Sound is also present, but here the news is less good. See, all the cars sound exactly the same, running with a kind of dull hum no matter how fast you are going. And, if I’m honest, the voice overs from the cast of the series made me want to pull my own ears off after a while. There’s only so many times you can hear the same stock phrases, after all! Of course, were I to be a younger gamer (much younger), then these interruptions would doubtless help with the immersion.
The Racing Loop
But what of the gameplay you ask? Well, there is no shortage of game modes to try out, depending on how many friends you have, and to some extent, the number of controllers available for use to those friends. That’s because Ultimate Speed runs with four player couch multiplayer mode to try out, should you have enough people to make it happen, and while I could only entice my 14 year old son to play alongside me, the split screen action here is just as fast and fluid as in the single player. Of course, any skullduggery such as pushing each other off the settee is to be deplored…
Sadly, there is no online multiplayer, so gather your mates on the settee or not all!
It means that I spent the majority of my time in the single player modes, and there are a good few of those. Racing Camp is pretty close to a story mode, if there had been a story, and then there is also Cup Champ and the Track Builder, alongside Free Races.
Custom Tracks and Cobra Bosses
It’s the Track Builder which is an interesting section. We can take a basic track layout and then customise it to our heart’s content, by adding sections in, then popping off for a quick test drive, before returning and tweaking it some more. A nice feature is that the average lap time is displayed as you build, and obviously the more complicated tracks will take longer to race around. There are also a set of challenges to complete in this mode, and I was pleasantly surprised by just how much fun it is.
The other modes all involve racing in some manner of means, and here we can also find another new feature to me, which is boss fights! These can be genuinely quite tense, as we attempt to avoid attacks from a Giant Cobra, say, while gathering items to throw at it in an attempt to defeat it. None of the boss fights are very tricky, but it does add another dimension to the racing action on offer.
The thing is, the controls that power Hot Wheels Let’s Race: Ultimate Speed do cause a few issues, as they are woolier than Shaun the Sheep! The game is set up around a drift model of handling, which would usually be right up my alley, but hold your horses. Kicking the car into a drift is easy enough, with a direction input and the LT button, but getting it out again is a lot harder. I quite often found myself bouncing off the edges of the track, and I’m going to guess that this was foreseen, as doing so doesn’t slow you down to any great degree.
It is annoying to me, as someone who is quite proud of his driving game skills to have this happen, but I can see that it is nice and easy for the kids to get to grips with. Other than this, the rest of the controls work well, and there is no doubt that the game is easy to pick up and play – something which should mean it is suitable for the target demographic.
Fun for the Kids, But Lacking Challenge
In conclusion, if you have kids, or are a fan of the series, then there is enough here in Hot Wheels Let’s Race: Ultimate Speed to get you behind the wheel, in turn delivering some fun racing. But should you dare be looking for a more challenging racer, this isn’t the one.
Important Links
Hot Wheels Let’s Race: Ultimate Speed Boosts the Loops This October – https://www.thexboxhub.com/hot-wheels-lets-race-ultimate-speed-boosts-the-loops-this-october/
Buy the Standard Edition from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/hot-wheels-lets-race-ultimate-speed/9PMC1QZKTSR4/0010
Or go Deluxe – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/hot-wheels-lets-race-ultimate-speed-deluxe-edition/9NN01GMBGV56/0010
