When asked to develop an arcade driving game dedicated to Hot Wheels, the guys at Milestone must have smiled: the Spanish team, specialized for years in the production of simulators with a ruthlessly realistic approach, took the first steps in this world. with a corridor dedicated to immediacy and spectacularity.
We don't know how much of the old Graffiti remains in the current Milan offices, but that task was brilliantly completed with the original Hot Wheels Unleashed: a simple but captivating product, which proved capable of selling more than two million copies.
Therefore, there was great curiosity to try this new episode of the series, richer and more multifaceted on paper: we tell you how it went for you. Hot Wheels Unleashed 2 Review: Turbocharged.
Structure: new things are coming
A fairly rich story mode, a set of quick modes, both local and online multiplayer and the inevitable editors: the offer of Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged in terms of content is very reminiscent of the beginning, but only requires a few minutes to understand I realize that the news is numerous and vary within different categories.
Let's start with Hot Wheels Creature Rampage, the new single player campaign which takes up the idea of the "Goose Game" board to involve us in a series of competitions that however this time aim to eliminate dangerous creatures; accompanied by comic-style sequences, dubbed into Spanish, in which a couple of characters carry out acts worthy of a XNUMXs cartoon.
The two heroes, a boy and a girl, will be able to count on the help of a robot and a scientist who has invented a miniaturization device. Precisely this device represents the key to ward off the threat of a horde of gigantic creatures, which in this way are miniaturized and end up becoming The typical monsters of some Hot Wheels tracks..
Also reduced, the protagonists of the story board their cars and speed away, with the aim of completing races (competing against whom? It is not known) and thus arriving at a confrontation with the creatures, a fascinating interior. boss fights in which you will have to hit certain objects with your car to inflict damage on the monster in question.
Despite its cartoonish naivety, Creature Rampage certainly represents the fulcrum of the Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged experience and brings all available stipulations into play, soon revealing the news introduced for the game also from this point of view. Elimination races, for example, or stage races where you will have to identify and reach checkpoints from time to time.
In short, the type of events has increased compared to the first episode, as has the car park, which has seen the introduction of three new categories (motorcycles, quads and monster trucks) which, however, did not particularly impress us: the two wheels behave on the track in a very similar way to normal cars, while the monster trucks are slow but less stable than we expected.
L'collectible appearance, already present in the original Hot Wheels Unleashed, is reiterated in the new chapter through the store where you can buy the numerous cars available, clearly displayed in their packaging and further embellished by the achievement of objectives that bring with them aesthetic rewards useful for Customizing our profile.
Then there are the inevitable ones. editor: those of liveries and stickers, which use mechanisms very similar to the solutions that Milestone has adopted for its traditional driving games; and of course the Track Builder, even more powerful and versatile than before, with many objects and options that we can use to create our ideal tracks and then share them with the community.
Gameplay: Turbocentric and with some new ideas.
Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocargado takes over turbocentric gameplay from the first episode and adds a couple of interesting new features. The possibility of jumping, first of all, which allows us not only to overcome fearsome abysses during a race in the absence of trampolines, but also to approach ramps in a different way that generally tend to launch our car into the air, with all the risks that this entails. entails. it implies.
Taking advantage of the turbo bar, which this time can also be charged by performing drifts and stunts, you can also turn right or left: an idea that is not particularly original and is only partially exploited here. In fact, the maneuver does not cause concrete damage to our adversaries, unless it is managed to be executed in a millimetric manner near an obstacle, thus transforming it into a mere gamble.
We were talking about the turbocentric approach: Milestone's game consists of tackling the corners in a skid, at full speed, and then activating the boost with the dual purpose of quickly exiting the hairpin and tackling the straights as quickly as possible. The system still works very well thanks to the large number of ramps and modifiers along the routes and has therefore been reused.
There are no particular evolutions in terms of the behavior of opponents, rather aggressive in impacts, while the problem of obstacles against which one often gets stuck, or of the reactions of the car beyond all logic after a collision , it is further reiterated: frustrating situations, which will necessarily require a recovery of the position and the consequent loss of precious seconds.
We have already talked about the new types of vehicles, which, as we have said, did not drive us crazy, although they deserve a separate discussion. update system, which in this case uses both the credits obtained during the campaign and some special coins to improve the performance of our car. However, forget about traditional tuning: we will have to limit ourselves to activating specific improvements, which will always keep the level of challenge of the experience well balanced, avoiding giving us excessive advantages.
The most significant effort made by Milestone in the playable aspect, however, is found in greater variety of this episode, which will be able to count on a greater number of scenarios, new surfaces (for example, grass and dirt, all very slippery), vehicles that are better differentiated in their behavior on the track, as well as completely new situations and stipulations.
Technical realization: look how it shines!
Although the distance that separates Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged from the first episode of the series on a technical level is not very wide, the developers have managed to give the visual sector its whole. greater impact, as well as some frame rate consistency during the frenetic changes of direction linked to the sliding mechanics.
Having to deal with reproductions of the famous Mattel cars and "homemade" settings allowed Milestone to reduce the geometries and limit the effects to the sectors of greatest interest, stepping on the accelerator in particular in the motion blur to give the action a good feeling of speed while ensuring Solid 60fps on PS5.
And the audio sector? The story mode sequences are well dubbed into Spanish, but it is mostly the colonna sonora get it right, thanks to an excellent selection of songs that accompany the action on screen in a very effective way, increasing involvement and highlighting the most extreme phases of each race, in which overtaking can make the difference between victory and defeat.
Conclusions
Tested version PlayStation 5 digital delivery Steam, playstation store, Xbox Store, Nintendo eShop Price 49,99 € Holygamerz.com 8.0 Readers (5) 7.3 your voteHot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged proposes the immediate and fun formula that worked so well in the first episode, adding some more or less relevant new features, increasing the content of the package and the variety of races, but above all carrying out an effective idea despite of its simplicity, which we imagine will once again win over the public that rewarded the series at its premiere.
PRO
- New content, more variety
- The formula always works very well.
- Excellent use of the Hot Wheels license.
AGAINST
- The new vehicles are not entirely convincing
- When you get stuck it can be frustrating
- The story and its characters: do we want to talk about it?
