Hot Wheels Unleashed Reviews
It’s hard to dislike almost any part of this joyful little title. With boundless ways to play, build and paint, this is sure to be one title that remains in my library for a very long time.
The famous brand is back on our consoles and on PC with hundreds of cars. Hot Wheels Unleashed may not be perfect, especially in terms of its purchasing system or its redundancy in single-player mode, but it offers an accessible arcade experience that can appeal to nostalgic as well as to the youngest.
Review in French | Read full review
Hot Wheels Unleashed is an enjoyable arcade racer with deep customization and great presentation, let down by a lack of modes to play.
Simple, fast, authentic, Hot Wheels Unleashed is one hell of a surprise in the almost rare world of arcade racers.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
If you think you can look past these issues, sure, Hot Wheels Unleashed is definitely worth a pop. For everyone else, I’d say it’s one to keep an eye on quietly for a month or two, just to see what the updates look like — and if it looks like they’re going to start gouging players’ wallets. And maybe treat yourself to a copy of Cruis’n Blast in the meantime.
Hot Wheels Unleashed is an excellent arcade racing games with some truly inventive and crazy tracks, wonderfully recreated Hot Wheels toys that drive beautifully and the visuals to back it all up. Unfortunately an in-balance of reasonably long to extremely long tracks and their many hazard risks make it too easy to get frustrated when struggling to reach top spot, and the track builder while very well detailed fails to make the user experience anything but pleasant.
Even with an outstanding Hot Wheels license to work with, Hot Wheels Unleashed's generic and uninspired execution coupled with lower presentation qualities makes it a below average racing title.
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!
More enjoyable and captivating than a first glance suggests, this arcade-style racer is fast and fun
Hot Wheels Unleashed is an excellent arcade racing game that doesn't fully embrace some of the wackier parts of the toy brand.
Having spent a fair portion of my childhood playing with the cars, tracks, and quite a few playsets there's absolutely an element of nostalgia in Hot Wheels Unleashed that comes in waves and puts a smile on my face...
Hot Wheels Unleashed -- in all caps and bolded letters -- is a passable arcade racer that sticks out from other middle-of-the-road racing games thanks to its devotion to nostalgia and some great ideas that are unfortunately not completely realized due to obvious budgetary restrictions. If you're desperate to get behind the wheel of your favorite Hot Wheel, it will scratch that itch, but not much else.
For Hot Wheels fans a must, for friends of arcade racers also a recommendation with compromises.
Review in German | Read full review
Now, you can’t just pick any car and hope that everything will be evenly matched. The cars all have their own stats that you have to be mindful of.
Hot Wheels Unleashed is really nice to look at and sometimes fun to play, but I’m not sure who it’s for. The in-game currency model is unnecessarily convoluted and annoying most of the time. The difficulty is unbalanced to the point where I was forced to play on easy and swallow my gamer pride. The online multiplayer is where the most enjoyment is, but expect to invest hours trying to pull a car that can compete with some of the rarer racers. If Unleashed were a contender in a race, it would place 12th, like I did many times.
Hot Wheels Unleashed is an okay racing game at best. If you want a much more enjoyable arcade-style racer with your favourite childhood toys then check out Beach Buggy Racing 2: Island Adventure which has its very own Hot Wheels Booster Pack DLC.
All of this adds up to a very strong, broadly appealing racer. Hot Wheels Unleashed is up there with Milestone’s MotoGP and Monster Energy Supercross, as well as the F1 and WRC games, as another winner in the ongoing renaissance of licensed motorsports gaming. For those who are perhaps not dedicated motorsports or sim racing fans, it could be a strong contender for their racing game of the year. I’ve become a virtual gearhead over the past four years, and Hot Wheels Unleashed is at least in the discussion for mine.
Hot Wheels Unleashed has a well-constructed base, as each aspect Milestone has implemented functions exactly the way it should. However, given that there are too many obvious similarities to a certain other track-building racer, it ultimately doesn’t do enough to set itself apart. Couple that with a serious lack of variety and a litany of added “gimmicks” that serve no real function, and there’s very little incentive to play continuously.
Hot Wheels Unleashed is a fantastic and thoroughly enjoyable arcade racer that brings my childhood imagination to the big screen in thrilling fashion. The visuals are fantastic, there’s plenty of modes and some pretty solid progression elements that kept me coming back for more.