The Batman Expansion swoops into Hot Wheels Unleashed

Finally, all the joys of driving a Batmobile without any of the pain of having your parents gunned down in an alley can be yours with the amazing new Batman Expansion that’s gone live in Hot Wheels Unleashed.

The downside to the expansion is that unlike the DC Super-Villans add-on, you actually have to pay for this. But on the upside, unlike the DC Super-Villains add-on, you don’t have to unlock the vehicles by grinding (causing more people to be those jerks that just leave their games running in online mode). And you get an entirely new map filled with new challenges that all take place in the Batcave level.

In addition, the cars this mode comes with are top-notch car designs. Two different chunky and powerful-looking Batmobiles (there’s two in case one loses a wheel), a Joker car that looks like a giant smile, a wonderful Penguin car that comes complete with monocle, top hat, and umbrella. My favorite is the Robin-themed car which is heavily inspired by Damian Wayne.

Do I have a soft spot for this particular car because my oldest son’s first and middle name is “Damian Wayne”? Possibly. But if you’re going to tell me this car doesn’t look cool as hell you are absolutely wrong and to quote the people who occasionally comment on my articles, “Your opinion is wrong and bad”.

In addition to the five cars, the new stage, a slew of customizable options for your basement and player tag, there’s also one more addition that absolutely needs to be discussed.

If you enjoy making tracks using the game’s profoundly amazing track creator or just enjoy playing people’s custom-made nightmares online, you’re not going to want to miss out on the newest thing the Batman Expansion adds to the track creator.

We’re talking about the Joker’s Fun House Split. Now, sure, it sounds like a moment in which the Joker slipped in his hideout and damaged his balls, but it’s so much better than that. The Joker’s Fun House Split is a fork in the road with a horrifying mechanical clown head in the middle. Sticking out of both sides of its head are giant hammers moving up and down.

Because of this, you have to carefully watch the hammers from afar to plan out which way you’re going to go. This really requires thought and placement too because the first time I encountered one of these it knocked me out of the sky two times before I learned to just wait for an opening.

Anyways, the update is out now and having played it for a few hours, I gotta say it’s a blast. The cars look amazing, the Joker Fun House Split is a really cool new track device and the Batcave is so exceptionally well detailed I crashed almost every time I saw something cool in the background. And you can see from my first drive through this stage…was a lot of crashing.