Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged is an approachable and nostalgic racer that enhances its predecessor’s formula.
As I raced through a dinosaur exhibit at a museum as a Hot Wheels monster truck, I realized that the racing game was made for five-year-old me. As a kid, I owned tons of Hot Wheels; looking back, it was a way my dad tried to share his love of cars with me. I played Milestone’s 2021 sleeper hit Hot Wheels Unleashed and thought it recaptured some of that childhood nostalgia. That feeling didn’t hit me in full force until I played this improved sequel, Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged.
Hot Wheels Unleashed 2 isn’t the most complex or challenging racer. It has a nonsensical story mode and some gambling-like presentation when unlocking cars that I don’t love in a game made for kids. Still, a few key additions go a long way toward making a faster, more fun racing game for kids (and kids at heart).Refined racing
Milestone’s Hot Wheels racing games are pretty straightforward arcade racers where the main goal is to boost, drift, and outdrive opponents to get first place. This is recontextualized in various modes, from the standard three-lap races to the Elimination mode that knocks out the players in the last two places in timed intervals. Boosting and drifting in Hot Wheels Unleashed 2 is key to success and as exhilarating as it was in its predecessor.
It’ll be hard to return to the first Hot Wheels Unleashed after playing this follow-up. The sequel improves the boost-based, arcade-like racing by giving players more ways to spend that boost meter. I could now spend a bit of it to jump or quickly do a lateral dash of my car to the side. While the jump got me over large gaps, and the lateral dash let me knock some other racers off course, they also added more movement utility to the game.
It’s easier to course-correct and get back on the track without completely resetting my car’s position now, as the vehicles are still pretty frail and can be bashed off course.
