Hotshot Racing review

Reviewed on: PC

Every once in a while, among those racing games that try to be super realistic, with cars modeled in the tiniest detail, a laid-back, arcade and super fun racing game shows up. Two years ago it was the turn of a gem called Horizon Chase Turbo, one of the best racing games of the last decade, and made right here in Brazil. This time, with the same proposal, comes Hotshot Racing. The result, although not as impressive, is a fun, fast and challenging racing game, but one that falls short on variety and longevity.

Hotshot Racing’s visuals are the famous “low-poly”: simple, super stylized 3D visuals. If you played the aforementioned Horizon Chase Turbo you will feel completely at home. The visual identity of the tracks, however, is not very varied, and it quickly gets a bit tiresome, taking some of the fun out of discovering a new track.
Hotshot Racing builds its gameplay on top of classics like Top Gear, Daytona USA and the aforementioned Horizon Chase Turbo. In Hotshot Racing you choose a character among a few pre-made ones (one of them, my favorite, is a Russian who never tires of saying that Russia is the best country in the world, all in that typical forced accent), and then choose one of the cars available to that character. Each character’s car has different stats, such as acceleration, speed, etc. The racing takes place on 16 original tracks plus 4 recently added by a free DLC, totaling 20 tracks divided into 5 championships. The campaign, the main game mode, consists of winning the 5 championships on the three difficulties available. Besides the campaign, the game has a multiplayer mode, but it lacks other game modes to give the title greater longevity.

The most important thing, obviously, is the gameplay in the races, and that is Hotshot Racing’s strong point. As said before, the game is far from being a simulator. Hotshot Racing has a drift system, through which you can take any corner without letting off the accelerator, sliding. With each drift you also accumulate energy in a turbo bar that can be activated for a brief but effective burst of super speed. Nothing here is innovative, they are all concepts seen countless times, but it is still very satisfying and very well executed. Collisions between cars make them start to slide, and it is very common for one of the other computer-controlled competitors to hit you and you end up drifting even without wanting to. Knowing how to control the car in these situations is essential, because even at the lowest difficulty levels the other racers are extremely aggressive and will do everything to get you out of the way.

The tracks have similar visuals and their design is also, for the most part, rather bland. No track in the game makes that kind of impact and stays in your memory. You know how everyone who played Crash Team Racing knows every curve of Crash Cove by heart, or any Mario Kart player instantly remembers the incredible and original look of the various versions of Rainbow Road? Hotshot Racing lacks that, because all the tracks are kind of similar and end up blending together in your head. I don’t have a favorite track in Hotshot Racing simply because I can’t remember any one in particular.

A point that always causes controversy in this type of game is the need for, and validity of, the famous “rubber-banding”: that mechanic present in several racing games of this style that makes your opponents much faster when they are behind, and a bit slower when they are ahead. This makes the races more unpredictable but also less fair. This is neither a positive nor a negative in any game, just something that depends on each player’s opinion. Personally, I think it happens in a very pronounced way in Hotshot Racing, and most of the time the best strategy is to stay in third or fourth position throughout the race and save your turbo to use in the last few seconds, overtaking everyone and finishing first. This avoids the competitors’ aggression toward you when you are winning.

Outside the championships and the simple race mode, offline or online, Hotshot Racing has no other game modes. There is no time trial option, nor customization options to turn off the turbo or tweak other aspects of the experience. The customization of characters and cars, however, is a completely different story. This is where the game’s longevity lies: each character has different outfits to unlock and there are countless accessories for each of their cars. If you are one of those players who needs to complete everything the game has to offer, Hotshot Racing will keep you busy for quite a while, but be prepared to repeat the championships many times. At least the last difficulty mode is quite challenging and requires mastery of the game’s mechanics as well as choosing the most suitable character for each situation.

Hotshot Racing is a mix of misses and hits. The most important part is very well done: the gameplay. The controls are responsive and the cars are fun to drive, even if we can’t do so on very memorable tracks. The game falls short on the lack of different modes: it needs a time trial or some other mode besides the regular race, to add a variety and longevity the game currently lacks, but at least there is no shortage of customization options for characters and cars. Hotshot Racing is, at heart, a good racing game, worthy of your attention, but one that unfortunately won’t hold you for very long.