A new kid-friendly Hot Wheels arcade racer for Switch
As we approach the festive period it’s not unusual to see more games on store shelves, both digital and physical, that are tie-ins. Games that use existing films, TV shows, celebrities, or even toys in some way.
Now, these tie-ins often vary wildly in quality, with the gamut running from the shameless, low-effort, or obvious cash grabs, to the novel, real love-letter projects that often reimagine a cherished media property.
Hot Wheels Let’s Race: Ultimate Speed, from developer Bamtang, probably falls somewhere squarely in the middle.
It’s an arcade racer pitched at a younger audience, and it’s actually something of a double tie-in. Firstly, of course, there’s the obvious Hot Wheels connection — you’ll find a ton of Mattel’s toy cars recreated digitally, all of which you can fling around the tracks. The second connection is to a Hot Wheels animated show that’s been running on Netflix for the past few years. The show’s third season premiered earlier this year, and now, there’s a game to go alongside it.
Now, I wasn’t familiar with this show prior to checking out this game, and well, why would I be — I’m not the target audience. My six year old son hadn’t seen the show before either though, so we decided to check it out quickly before diving into the game, so we could both better understand the connection here.
It’s a lighthearted, fairly conventional TV offering about a bunch of determined young drivers putting their driving skills to the test at ‘racing camp’. The game lets you step into their shoes and race across a bunch of similar environments as to those seen in the show. Remember all the cartoons in the 80s designed to sell us toys? It’s pretty much a modern take on that.
Players aren’t just left to figure things out from the off, as there’s a simple tutorial that opens the game, acting as a gentle introduction to the core gameplay — bringing a mix of both traditional arcade racing along with outlandish, over-the-top boss encounters.
Once familiar with the core race mechanics, players are then swiftly welcome to explore the wider game — including a garage where you can see your unlocked cars, the main racing campaign, and even a neat create-your-own track builder.
A typical campaign race challenges players to hit boost points, grab pick-ups, and navigate turns — the arcade gameplay won’t challenge, or particularly excite, older players, but in testing my son seemed engaged and happy enough.
Things amp up with the aforementioned boss encounters, which challenge players to not only do all of the usual arcade racing, but also time their attack moves to take down various on-screen baddies. It’s an added layer of complexity and welcome variety to the otherwise pretty run-of-the-mill racing.
I’ll note that my son’s interest was helped along by assistive controls, similar to those popularised by Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Having these (completely optional) control toggles in place, helps with things like acceleration and steering — and they’re a big win in my eyes. They open up the overall experience to a wider audience of players, and it’s something I’m always appreciative of seeing. My appreciation goes a step further here however, as I found the base handling a little off, so any help to ‘correct’ that was appreciated.
The track builder was a much welcome surprise addition too. It’s something of a neat nod to the long toy building legacy of Hot Wheels. Setting up a big plastic loop to fling cars around your bedroom is almost a right of passage, so to have a digital recreation of that here is nice to see. Not only that, but in a world of Minecraft and Roblox, having any sort of building mechanism seems to be a sound move.
With accurate characters, adequate voice acting, and tracks which mimic the TV locales, the links to the cartoon on which this racer is based is really clear — and, although on the whole the presentation in Hot Wheels Let’s Race: Ultimate Speed is a tad basic and simple, young fans of the Netflix show will no doubt appreciate what’s on screen.
If you’ve got a kid who is a big fan of the show, then this is probably a really solid choice for them — they’ll undoubtedly get a buzz out of seeing and controlling the shows various characters. But, if you’ve got a child who is not overly familiar with the Netflix cartoon and is just a fan of Hot Wheels and toy cars more generally, there are probably better options to go for — such as the Hot Wheels Unleashed games.
This new Hot Wheels Switch game performs well, offers plenty to do, and on the whole is a competent, if somewhat simple, arcade experience — a straightforward racer that will likely appeal to younger players.
Hot Wheels Let’s Race: Ultimate Speed is available now for Nintendo Switch (and PS5)