Thanks to Milestone ‘Hot Wheels Unleashed’ has been brought to PlayStation 4|5 Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC. Hot Wheels Unleashed is a fun game for all ages where players load up, are given three blind boxes of cars to open, and then hit the twisting and turning tracks. These box drops can range from common to legendary cars but I was lucky to get ‘Kit’ from Knight Rider as my first car pull and never looked back with its great speed and handling.

The game has many cars to unlock via the blind boxes which can be acquired from spending gold earned in-game from winning races or by getting to certain spots within the city rumble game mode. There are also limited offers where there will be five cars displayed with a higher cost to buy.

Depending on the rarity of the car negates the price with the highest one I have seen for sale at 1500 gold whereas the blind boxes only cost 500, which has a chance to give the same car. You do the math, I know where I am spending my gold.

City Rumble is the career mode that has you racing across levels that unlocks the streets of a city map. The game has modes such as standard races, time attacks, and boss battles which reward the player with the most compared to the others. The track builder is a great addition to the game as being able to make whatever you want is always fun to try out for yourself or put your friends to the test. There is also an online multiplayer component which I very much look forward to playing when the game releases which I’ll come back and update you on.

While viewing the collection of cars you are able to upgrade, dismantle and sell cars them so if you pull doubles of a car you are able to turn it into something you need. I found dismantling was worth it more so I was able to upgrade my cars instead of having another blind box give me another double. For a game based on toy cars, it looks amazing, I can’t fault any of the graphics, which oozes the charisma of a real hot wheels toy car.

For controls, it would really come down to which car you are also using. The basic concept is easy for a racing game; gas, break and boost are all you need to know. For handling though it will reflect on the car you are using as some will kick out on corners, others will gain more speed and some will be harder to turn while boosting, so check the breakdown of a car before picking as it will help in the long run.

Overall, this game was traveling as a top-notch experience until the soundtracks started getting to me. I love a good soundtrack, unfortunately, Hot Wheels Unleashed went with an EDM-type soundtrack which I wouldn’t mind but with only three tracks cycling randomly during a race, it bothered me. It also speeds up while boosting which sounds weird and honestly, there seems to be only one that sounds decent while the other two have the same ear-piercing screech that sounds like a cat screaming. If there were going to be future music updates then that will be good but at this point in time, the music is the only clear negative the game has to offer.

Hot Wheels Unleashed as a whole is a good game to play. It is welcoming for players at a young age with a large range of cars to collect and a fun track builder that provides the community with a great chance to show off their work. I look forward to seeing custom tracks in the near future. The ease in which you can earn gold at a steady pace to buy the blind boxes will have people coming back for more of that speed racer action.

Written by: Shane Walsh