Any house with young children contains a variety of objects designed to cause as much pain as possible when stepped on. Lego, of course, comes in at number one, if only because it seeps into the very fabric of a house, but Hot Wheels cars are a close second place, their metal chassis making the perfect combination of roller skate and bladed instrument, all in one small, recognisable package. Still, a day pushing Hot Wheels down convoluted plastic orange tracks is one well-spent, even if you and your offspring may never be forgiven for the state of the skirting boards. In the interests of preserving the soles of your feet, you might prefer to play Hot Wheels Infinite Rush, though.
Hot Wheels Infinite Rush is the latest racing game that aims to bring those skirting board-destroying shenanigans to life, but where predecessors Hot Wheels Unleashed and its sequel gave you real-world recreations of different rooms to shriek around, Infinite Rush imagines its own Hot Wheels world, where you can careen around open islands, pulling up to events or seamlessly joining them. It can very easily be described as Forza Horizon, but with toy cars – this might sound familiar. There are definitely some improvements to the racing action that come from this newfound outlook, but this also feels like a first attempt from Milestone, that’s likely to be perfected the next time out.
As an open-world playground, Infinite Rush provides with a series of different locations to scoot around, each littered with events, collectables and things to do. That stretches from traditional races to drift events, time trials, destruction tasks, and photo opportunities, each earning you Rush Coins to unlock new cars and cosmetics.
Cars fall into four main tiers: Versatile is your classic all-rounder, Drifter does exactly what you’d expect, Speeder is your ultra-fast class, and Titan is made up of heavier trucks and pick-ups that can’t be bullied around the race track. You’ll start off with one of each in your welcome pack, but you’ll soon be growing your collection, with further bonus cars available for completing each tier in your garage.
The racing itself maintains a decent balance that makes for good all-round fun, and both myself and my 10-year-old son had a lot of fun with each of the different events. You have to concentrate, at times, particularly during the one-on-one Daredevil races, where you can roll up to rivals for an instant grudge match, but the driving action is firmly aimed at younger players. You can unlock upgrade slots for each of your cars, letting you tailor cars to your driving style or improve on a particular class’s weakness. It’s an easy-to-understand system that adds some depth, while also being approachable to younger players.
The presentation here is stellar. Each car looks exactly like its real-world Hot Wheels counterpart, and you can practically feel the texture of the bodywork and the weight of each vehicle in your hand. If you’ve had Hot Wheels at any point in your life, or you’ve helped raise a new generation of Hot Wheels fans, there’s a host of recognisable favourites that you can match up with your own collection, and you’ll get a real kick out of racing these tiny cars that you know so well, recreating races and situations that have previously only been imagined. You don’t even have to make the pretend car sounds!
There’s an additional Vehicle Pass which comes in at an extortionate £32.99, and while it adds 44 further vehicles to your collection, that’s a heck of a lot for digital versions of tiny cars. I’m sure that the small people who are the target audience for this game will be instantly drawn to spending your money, so I’d recommend making sure your parental controls are locked down.
A lot of my feelings about Hot Wheels Infinite Rush probably stem from not really being the target audience for it. It’s light, breezy and plenty of fun, but it does start to wear a little thin. Whether that’s due to some of the constraints of the level design – you can’t just drive straight up hillsides like in Forza Horizon, and have to go all the way around – it’s lost some of the challenge of Hot Wheels Unleashed, or that the repetition of events just seemed to lose its appeal sooner than in some racing games, it’s hard to say.
However, my 10-year-old is continuing to laugh gleefully at just driving around and ramming other cars out of the way, and his opinion, in this case, matters quite a bit more. His opinion doesn’t matter in everything, because he still won’t eat vegetables, but when it comes to Hot Wheels Infinite Rush, you can take his cackling as a good thing.
