Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: Hot Wheels World Race

Written by John Scalzo on January 20, 2004

Full Review: I can't drive 55! Wait, you mean I get to go 250? SWEET!

Last year's Hot Wheels Velocity X was a mediocre racer at best in containing a good deal of flaws to flood its engines. But, like The Simpsons, no matter how many bad games are produced, a good license always demands another shot. It's safe to say that Hot Wheels World Race is an improvement over Veloxity X in every way and can stand on it's own as an incredibly fun game.

Would you believe a mad scientist named Tezla discovered 15 tracks in a parallel dimension? And that because his driving skills were on par with Miss Daisy that he builds 35 futuristic racing machines and recruits the world's best drivers to drive them? No? Well good, because this is a racing game and that "story" behind Hot Wheels World Race is in the instruction booklet where it belongs.

World Race is your standard entry in the futuristic racing genre with a Hot Wheels twist. In only one sentence, that's the best description you could give of this game. And that's not any knock on it, because there's something to be said for a game that knows what it is and does it well. And World Race is probably the closest thing to playing with die cast cars as you can get on a video game system.

The game features thirty five authentic Hot Wheels cars and fifteen tracks loaded with twists, turns, loop the loops, jumps, shortcuts and more than a few sections where your car is completely vertical. And the colors, oh the colors! World Race is one of the standards by which all games that are considered "colorful" must be judged. The tracks and cars in World Race look amazing. Imagine this, or this, or this with a wild background of crackling lightning, a snowy mountain or a rising column of flame. A simple swirling vortex of water has never looked so cool. There's no real graphical tricks to it, they've just got the Hot Wheels look down, and for a licensed game, having "the look" is everything. Although on some tracks you can tell the developers went a little overboard with the lens flare effect, making it sometimes hard to tell what's going on for a bit, it's minor and I can't stress enough just how cool these tracks look.

The game itself is not very deep. There are the standard Quick Race, Time Trial, and League options that almost all racing games have. No surprises at all there. And even though there are fifteen tracks, many of them feature the same style and very similar sections. On top of that they all have to be replayed at every difficulty level to move on to the next difficulty level. While it won't win any points for originality, World Race is a fun racing game through and through. You will keep at this game for as long as it takes to unlock all fifteen tracks and all 35 cars and have fun doing it. And you have to respect the run of perfection required on all fifteen tracks to win the Elite League. Very old school.

The gameplay mechanics themselves are nothing out of the ordinary. X is gas, Square is brake, L1 is the handbrake for powerslides and L2/R2 is the nitro boost. Rings litter the tracks and collecting twenty will fill the nitro bar. There are also Flaming Tires that open up shortcuts. Rounding out the futuristic racing game repertoire are jump pads and speed burst arrows. The game also features a simple stunt system that is very similar to the one in Velocity X. Moving the left stick to make your car spin and pressing the face buttons for "combos" is all there is to it. And just like in Velocity X, hitting a 360 spin or better plus adding a combo will fill your nitro bar. Although you do have to mix up your trick selection, because doing the same trick over and over again will result in the computer telling you it's stale.

But using that nitro is somewhat of another story. You really have to pound on the button to get it work and it's very frustrating to get into a jump, press the nitro, and then see a full tank still sitting there as everyone jumps over you. All of the other controls respond fine, except for the nitro.

The music and sound effects are everything you'd expect from a futuristic racing game: revving engines, squealing tires and the satisfying whoosh when you hit a boost arrow. They get the job done and aren't too bad. The music is, not surprisingly, of the techno variety. Every futuristic racing game has to feature techno music and World Race is no exception. There are a few different music tracks, all tied into the racetrack you're on. So if you're on the Egyptian Dunes track the music will be techno with an Egyptian feel to it. All of the tracks are like that. There's the beach music techno, the jungle music techno, the "ice world" themed techno. There's nothing wrong with it, but all they did was take regular music, put a techno bass line on it and slap it into the game. With only a handful of cuts the music is entirely forgettable. Or not because you'll be listening to the same songs over and over again and the songs aren't that long so they loop constantly during a race. They also have a strange tendency to cut out completely for periods of time.

Finally, I just want to comment on the load times and framerate of World Race. Velocity X had a terrible framerate that was the worst part of the game. World Race includes very long load times, but then backs it up with a perfect framerate. If that's the price to pay for a perfect framerate then so be it, I won't complain, I'll even say job well done.