HOT WHEELS™ Infinite Rush

I really liked Hot Wheels Unleashed 2 and greedily shelled out the bucks for ALL the Acceleracers DLC, so please believe I was excited for this game... It's not bad bad, it's just a poor man's Forza and somehow worse than Unleashed 2(a very low bar). It gives you lots of padding that you could call "gameplay" but it's somehow less stimulating than playing with actual Hot Wheels toys on your floor. Want to race around a giant empty open world and collect 300 gears? Wanna pay $50 to do that? How about $100? The controls also feel very "off" compared to HWU2, probably to accommodate for the open world aspect, but good luck trying to actually steer. I tried to like it, but for what I paid I just can't justify it. Refunded. I'll stick to HWU2. Might buy again when it eventually hits 90% clearance.

Yeah, NOPE. This is a straight up cash grab from Milestone yet loads of people are giving it praise. The game gets stale really quick, has 4 difficulty settings but none hold any challenge against the computer and they want £45 for the base edition with 4 small islands that won't hold much replayability at all. Then they want another £45 on top of that for the ultimate edition which gives you 4 new cars per month when you'll probably be done with the game before you see 2 or 3 car packs and if you want to play the Ferrari expansion island there is no way to do so unless you're buying the £90 ultimate edition. I really wanted to like this one but very quickly saw the lack of effort they've put into the game with repeated races in the first hour and collectibles scattered everywhere to pad out playtime. I will give them props for one thing, I like how you can switch between the 4 vehicle classes on the fly, that was at least cool. I have a video review here if you want to see some gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCOXVq7zqnw

After Milestone's Hot Wheels: Unleashed in 2021 and Unleashed 2 in 2023, I'm not sure a third entry in five years was in huge demand so they changed up the formula a bit. Following a similar path of the Burnout series, this is their Burnout Paradise. It's open world and you explore and find collectibles, races, events, wanted drivers who you have to catch and challenge to a race, and a lot more. Except with Hot Wheels being a toy brand, compared to Burnout the world is bright and cute and amusing, with all sorts of monsters and strange cars (along with real world replicas) and impossible geometry. There are four different worlds, each with a pretty distinct look that are not seamlessly connected, you launch off a travel ramp and load into the next world of your choosing after you unlock it. It's fun. I prefer the Unleashed games because they're more challenging, more about racing, but this is a nice change of pace. And it pretty much is the Unleashed handling, physics, and sound moved to an open world. For what it is it's done well, something to beer & chill with after a stressful day of work for some low-medium stress fun. 2000s era comfort gaming.

The cars handle extremely differently in and out of races so it's difficult to get a feel for the car, and even different events hadle differently because of this 'Want to do a drift event? The handling has to be turned all the way up because we're dumb, and the drift trial is a time trial... because we're dumb' Also basic navigation feels annoying, there's no GPS or anything to help you keep following the loosely defined track, but as soon as you start the game you're bombarded with pop-up instruction tutorials like you need your hand to be held. There's also day one DLC and somehow the utimate virsion is twice the cost of the regular game so I can't recomend it

Babys first trackmania and thats a good thing This is where i hoped wed end up after hotwheels unleashed 1&2 while i liked both of those quite a bit the friction between races really pulled me out of it over and over again. Now thats not all be relieved here but it is a much tighter experience overall and amore seamless one. Though i do find menus to still he a bit cumbersome than they need to be. Aesthetically they nail it, its the first time in a while ive felt like the pictures ive taken in photo mode could be used in the marketing, the game looks incredible especially on the cars. Not that the previous two titles were slouches, but they have nailed the textures here So far city is layed out in fun ways i do wish all the islands connected seamlessly for a really super open world experience which i hope the next will remedy, its layed out almost exactly the same way lego 2k drive is except the layouts themselves offer much more breathing room. This allows a pretty good feeling of grandeur but nothing is too far away. Still i wish the islands were connected. Soundtrack feels almost like gorillaz backing tracks but all the songs forgo lyrics or any real world music, the soundtrack is great but there is a disconnect driving through citys and streets without proper licensed tracks, i get why its gotta appeal to all ages and its nothing Spotify cant remedy The only other real negative i have is unleashed 2 featured a jump button and while i found its use in that game to feel a bit trivial and tacked on the lack of it here in an open world is very missed, it feels like it would add so much to the experience to have it. I could see how balancing a world and races around it could be more problematic but even if it wasn't utilized in races it would be huge for the open secrions and track creations going forward. Its a bizarre omission here. Otherwise so far really great arcade racing and another excellent hotwheels game.

Let me preface this by saying this is the first game I've bought on launch day since GTA V on XB360. Haven't' been so excited to see a game coming out in years. Have just completed the first island including all collectibles and gears. The racing is fun, but not very challenging on medium difficulty, however the daredevil challenges seem to have a very large difficulty gap that prevents me from wanting to up the difficulty. This game is very niche, so it may not be for you. It's very arcade-y, for obvious reasons (they're toy cars lol) so if you're a more simulated racing person, you may not like the feel. For those of us that have had Hot Wheels since before birth and had countless playsets and tracks as a kid, this game is very fun. Playing this game feels like you're rolling out the ol' roadmap play rug. The environments are fun and engaging, and as a collector you'll enjoy the range of car series that have been included so far dating back to the 2000 Treasure Hunt series as I've seen, and the attention to detail on the models is incredible, down to the differentiation of rivets and the production codes on the undersides. If you want to relive the enjoyment of launching an IRL diecast car at your sibling's head at mach Jesus from a plastic orange track, this game will probably scratch that itch.

solid game, tho it is a bit pricey. fine tuned the handling from HWU1&2 with the joys of an open world to explore tho i do wish they were inter connected but i didn't expect them too. Acceleracers/Highway 35 fans (like myself) get their fair share of cars to roam and race with and i do like being able to have 4 cars and classes to swap with at ease. multiplayers fine from the handful of races i did but we'll see if it dies of like HWU2 did LUL, progressions fine tho the gears are a bit tedious. solid 7.5/10 wish it was a lower price but im an acceleracers fan so i'll gobble up whatever i can XD

You would think an open-world Hot Wheels game following the Unleashed duology would be a slam dunk, but between the bland island exploration and rather boring races I had to hang this one up. It's not *bad* and might be worth on a deep discount, I'd just rather spend $50 on something more engaging.