REVIEW – It was only a matter of time before Milestone announced the second Hot Wheels Unleashed after the success of the first instalment, which continues to reflect the embarrassing state of the games industry by adding a season pass on the day of release. Apart from that, it is better than the first, but still not a superior, excellent product. Fans will have fun with it, but nothing more…

The world’s raddest cars are back and taking the fun to the next level! Race over 130 vehicles with crazy new mechanics and even more car types. Plus, build your tracks with stunning new environments and multiple game modes to have fun offline and online!

Mini

Milestone has paid a lot of attention to the cars in HWU2 (it will be written properly at the end, until then it’s a waste of character), because you can’t complain about the look of the minicars. They’re well detailed, and even the damage model is good, because when you smash them in races, the paint wears off like you’d hit the foot of a chair in real life. There’s plenty of variety in the vehicles (you can even find a tank in the vehicle selection), but the same goes for the environments. If you want the backdrop of an old-fashioned pizza parlour, you can, but of course there are hazards depending on the location, as you’d expect from the second part of HWU. Vehicles have a boost, which is one of the few abilities, but you can also jump and side-jump properly. (This sort of thing can be used as an attack in, say, F-Zero GX, where you can slam your car into your opponent at an angle from the side and keep them under your control). Using abilities will deplete your boost bar, but you can recharge it by driving into the wind, driving in style or drifting.

The courses themselves give you a free hand as long as you get through the checkpoints, so there’s a slightly more open approach to Milestone’s gameplay, but it’s best not to overdo it, because even with the quick respawn, the unexpected gap in your path might make you consider taking the right route. Speaking of roads, there is also a story mode with its own overhead map. Each has minimum and extra requirements (the latter for rewards), but the comic book story can be described as forgettable, and unfortunately the same can be said of the boss fights. If you miss a single target in a race, you can start again, earning enough money to buy and customise cars from the game’s often-changing selection. Finally, there are no loot boxes, just the traditional way of adding to your collection by completing challenges or reaching one of the milestones set by HWU2. This alone makes it a better value than the first part: the traditional method is all that counts, and there’s no real money microtransaction anywhere…

Cars

It was recently mentioned that it is not really worth it to get off the road, as there is a greater chance of making mistakes. For a game designed for a younger age group, HWU2 has the potential to screw up at almost every turn, which is a bit unusual in game design. Not only could this be a negative, but also the sound aspect, because the sound of the engines is average, maybe slightly better, but the music is completely forgettable, and Milestone almost always struggles with the music (either no music during the races or some kind of soda rock to take care of it), and the turbo sound is hmm… it’s not really recommended to play with headphones, as it will be even more noticeable, maybe even annoying.

We should also mention that there is a track editor, and you can also design your car’s livery. It’s worth playing around with it first, as you can unlock more options over time and share your work with other users. This will extend the life of the game by a few months, thanks to the creative minds at work. There’s multiplayer, of course, and this time it’s cross-platform, so you can get more people together to play. Locally, you can play with up to two people in a split-screen solution, which is a bit less of an effort than you might expect from the Italian developers. The multiplayer options are still fun, but anyone playing on Switch will miss out on cross-platform…

Compete

Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged gets a seven and a half out of ten because the first game got a seven, and it’s better than that. Still, it’s worth playing in shorter chunks, as it’s less boring and gets tiresome later on. Perhaps they could have considered making all the cars available from an in-game shop, and making the rarer ones quite expensive, because it’s the Gran Turismo model, so the supply is constantly changing and you have to keep an eye on what’s available. The game is fun, but it does get tiring after a relatively short time on your own. If there are others to play with, it can be a lot of fun to tease each other, and could be rated 8/10.

-V-

Publisher: Milestone

Developer: Milestone

Style: car racing

Release: October 19, 2023.
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