Oct 16, 2007

Many of you probably have fond memories of building insane routes for your Hot Wheels brand toy cars as kids. You ma🌄y recall driving your parents crazy with looping plastic tracks strewn around the living room and rogue ramps bridging a massive jump across the toilet. And in all this reminiscing, you꧋ may think that Hot Wheels: Beat That! could prove a stimulating means of reliving your childhood or allowing your own children to experience in digital form what you once did physically.

Short-form rev💫iew: it doesn't. Don't 🔯waste your time.

The idea behind a Hot Wheels racing game is so simple as to seem impossible to screw up: pilot a variety of colorful plastic vehicles through larger-than-life settings ranging from house rooms to a mini-golf course to a bowling alley. Early races successfully capture the sense of wonder that these locations should bring about, but the game is quickly dragged down 🐠by frequent repeats of the same courses with minor objective changes. Whether you're vying for first place or destroying your opponents, driving over the same pool table for the sixth time doesn't become any more interesting.

The game might have been salvaged with robust (or at-all existent)𝄹 Xbox Live multiplayer, but Activision opted for the easy way out. The "high-octane multiplayer action" promised on the back of the box? What they meant is two-player splitscreen.