10 best gaming surprises of 2021 (and 5 terrible ones)
03) Great Moment – Hot Wheels Unleashed exists. Period.
Sometimes a game will show up out of nowhere based on a toy line or something and will just be straight-up bargain bin boo-boo. These kind of games tend to lack any sort of polish and merely exists to get more cash out of their existing fans.
Hot Wheels Unleashed, however, I don’t know who this was made for but I’m so glad it’s here.
For real. So much love and work went into this game. The tracks, environments and everything look real. At no point do you think you’re driving real cars, the game always looks like you’re driving die-cast metal Hot Wheels down plastic tracks and it’s beautiful. Especially when played on something like the PS5. I started playing this on the Switch and I loved it but when I came to the PS5 I realized there were visual effects I was missing. Your paint chips off when you scrape other cars. If you fall off the track and half to be put on, you have a greasy thumbprint on your windshield for the rest of the match. The detail is astounding.
Not only that, but the licensed vehicles make every match filled with bizarre moments. You could be tearing past a giant plastic spider in the Batmobile, watching as you pass the DeLorean from Back to the Future try to get out of the web, only to find yourself passed by Snoopy from Peanuts piloting his red doghouse. You’ll find the TMNT cartoon van in here. K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider. And so many more. They just recently even had Batman events where you could unlock a slew of cars based on the heroes and villains. Heck, a free update in the last week added the friggin’ Barbie Dream Camper because why the heck not.
If that wasn’t enough the game is also a dream for customization fans. Not only can you completely paint over almost any vehicle with a level of detail rarely seen in these types of games, but you can even build your own track. Click the pieces together. Make them as long or short as you need. Twist each one as you see fit. And then, as long as you can finish a single lap yourself, you can post the stage online and it’ll get added to the online rotation of multiplayer maps meaning that there will always be new and different courses to race on.