Hot Wheels Unleashed Reviews
Check out Hot Wheels Unleashed Review Scores from trusted Critics below. With 27 reviews on CriticDB, Hot Wheels Unleashed has a score of:
Hot Wheels Unleashed 2 takes everything that worked about the original and expands upon it. The core racing action is improved across the board with more kinds of races to partake in and a more in-depth story mode to keep things moving forward. There's always a goal to attain with XP gaining new vehicles and parts and every race feels like it serves a greater purpose. It controls like a dream, looks gorgeous and offers a satisfying, fast-paced racing experience for all who seek one. Hot Wheels Unleashed 2 is among the best licensed racers of the past decade and...
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Republished on Wednesday 28th September 2022: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of October's PlayStation Plus lineup. The original text follows.
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“Hot Wheels Unleashed starts off blazing fast but ends up as a shallow kart racer.”
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Hot Wheels Unleashed is an excellent arcade racing game that doesn't fully embrace some of the wackier parts of the toy brand.
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Hot Wheels Unleashed is a competent enough racer, but lacks anything to make it unique compared to previous games. It’s generally very bland, relies on loot boxes, and the AI rubber bands constantly.
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Hot Wheels Unleashed is a surprisingly good racing game that brings your childhood imagination to life while offering you endless creative options for customising your toy racers and designing your own tracks. No matter your age there is tons to love here!
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The game is jaw-droppingly gorgeous. The attention to detail is astounding: cars with movable pieces bounce around realistically, tint on windows shows scratches at the end of a race, and the light reflecting off of cars and tracks might be the best I’ve seen yet this generation. There’s a sense of love and appreciation for the Hot Wheels brand on display here that should be looked at for any licensed product going forward. If anything, I would have loved a museum of sorts with blurbs or historical information about each car for me to learn more about them.
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You could be forgiven if you were ready to dismiss Hot Wheels Unleashed as another shameless licensed release vying for younger gamers’ attention, but that would be a mistake. While the game is undoubtedly entertaining to share with the family, this racer is more than it first appears. Thanks to the rewarding speed, clever course design, and a bevy of customization options, these tiny cars pack a big punch, delivering many hours of racing thrills through single-player, multiplayer, and creation tools.
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As a bear who grew up in the '90s, I loves me some Hot Wheels but does this latest racer hold up? I wish it did but it's not that fun.
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The overall feeling of Hot Wheels Unleashed is that it is a huge win for nostalgia fans and racing fans alike. From the graphical detail of the world to the tracks to the cars everything is spot on with how you remember these cars looking. The control you have while racing puts Hot Wheels Unleashed right up there with some of the other AAA racing titles. This title will be launching on September 30, 2021, to PS5, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC for USD 49.
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Hot Wheels Unleashed has been a title I have been looking forward too since the first glimpses of gameplay were released back in April. For those that don’t know, Hot Wheels are a brand of miniature toy car and you can build tracks featuring loops, jumps and more to play with. Putting aside the Hot Wheels DLC for Forza Horizon a few years back, this is the first Hot Wheels branded standalone game in almost a decade.
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Similar to the ever-addictive Trackmania (including a borrowed element or two), Hot Wheels Unleashed puts you in charge of one of sixty-six vehicles spanning real manufacturers and wacky Hot Wheels originals at launch across a generous serving tracks in six locations.
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Again, all of these creations can be shared online, and it’s here where I expect the game will see the most longevity. I have concerns that at present at least, there doesn’t seem to be a way to allow the best tracks to float to the top, and I’m not sure what they’ve got planned here. Either way, it’s off to solid start.
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Hot Wheels Unleashed has a lot of good concepts and ideas that are sullied by awkward execution and weird design choices. Its physics could use some more fine-tuning, and its AI needs to be rebalanced, along with a revamped track builder. Yet, there's still some glimmer to its toy car shine.
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I have to begin this review by stating something unexpected. I am more than confident that Forza Horizon 5 will be the best racing game released in 2021. That’s already kinda obvious. Now, the second place was up for grabs up until recently. One would have imagined that this spot would have been taken by WRC 10 or Cruis’n Blast. But I’m here to state what I would have never imagined in my wildest dreams. Hot Wheels Unleashed, a licensed racing game based on Mattel die-cast toys crafted ...
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Hot Wheels Unleashed gets its racing and assortment of cars so very right, but unlocking more content is unfathomably restrictive and frustrating.
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It may be based on a particular brand of die-cast toy cars aimed at kids, but Hot Wheels Unleashed is a fun arcade-style racer suitable for all ages and, for the most part, skill levels. Bursting with content, it’ll be a while before you’ve grown tired of its many tracks and unlocked all of the 60-plus cars that it offers. Throw in online and offline multiplayer, a track builder, and gameplay that’s easy to pick up but has some additional depth for more skilled players, and you have a package that’s easy to recommend.
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Hot Wheels Unleashed is a bit light on level and event type variety but still delivers a great racer worthy of the Hot Wheels name with plenty of speed, detailed customization, and a meaty roster of fun vehicles.
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I’m giving Hot Wheels Unleashed a 8.5 out of 10. If all you care about is the racing itself it might be a little higher, but the issues with the controls in the Track Builder and a few other small issues here and there make the score for the whole product a solid 8.5. Hopefully people are able to see past or even embrace the less than stellar parts because ultimately I think this game is worth playing and I think that for fans of arcade racing, it’s a must-play. I’m pleased that it lived up to my expectations on...
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As it stands right now, Hot Wheels Unleashed is a fun racer whose fantastic selection of cars makes up for its relative lack of varied course environments. With updates and DLC it has the potential to become a brilliant mess of licensed properties in the way the best mash-up games are, but what’s here is a solid enough foundation to start from, even if it’s a little samey at launch.
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As someone who loved Micro Machines and Hot Wheels growing up and put many hours into the PS2 entries all those years ago, I was pretty excited to see what a modern version of that concept could do. As it turns out, Hot Wheels Unleashed is a great little racer and one of 2021’s hidden gems thanks to its fast-paced racing and addictive, nostalgia-inducing car-collecting loop. It can be a little bloated and repetitive in long play sessions, and has a blind box issue that slows things down occasionally but it’s perfect for short bursts of arcade fun.
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The brand's plastic track pieces ultimately work against this fun arcade racer.
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Hot Wheels Unleashed isn't perfect, but it still has the potential of fun.
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All in all, Hot Wheels Unleashed is a fun arcade racer that has a lot going for it, and unlike other arcade racers, it has enough going for it to keep you coming back. Even after the campaign is completed, there’s still lots to do, such as finding all the secrets, getting the best time on all the tracks, the basement, and the track creator. Even if this wasn’t a Hot Wheels game, this title is a solid arcade racer, and I’d recommended it to anyone who’s looking for a racing game that isn’t too serious.
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Hot Wheels Unleashed is a decent racer with some excellent surrounding elements. It lacks the strategy and realism of a sim, but doesn’t hit the over-the-top chaos and action of an arcade racer either. Despite that, the amount of customization available, and with all of the cars to collect, fans of Hot Wheels toys will likely have a good time with Unleashed.
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Hot Wheels Unleashed is a good addition to the world of racing games, with enough to make it totally unique but not too much to overcomplicate it. There are a few things I wish would make it feel more full, but for what it does deliver, it delivers it well.
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If you’ve ever dreamt of playing with Hot Wheels toys in a video game, Milestone makes it come true. This is the ultimate proposition for Hot Wheels enthusiasts. But is it a proper game at all? Well, yes… but no. At least not right now.
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