One would think that with a property like Hot Wheels, there would have been at least a higher level of interest in the amount of quality you would want to invest in games made of the franchise. Sadly, this is another game that does not get that treatment; instead it’s yet another game trying to make a quick buck. It’s not all bad though.

Hot Wheels: World’s Best Driver, despite what the box claims of being for 1-4 players, is mostly a single player experience. This is because you need to unlock the multiplayer by playing the majority of the game. The game is set up as rank based challenge mode. No real racing whatsoever. You pick from one of 4 teams which each have their own play styles and challenges. Green Team deals with speed. Challenges range from Ghost Racing, where you have to catch up with a ghost racer, Top Speed challenges, or Elimination where you are tasked with getting through gates in a set timeframe over several laps. Blue Team is technical, and has you doing things like drifting, or parachute braking where you are graded based on how close you are to the wall when you stop. The Yellow Team deals with power. Its challenges are based on riding tough terrain or destroying objects with powerful vehicles. Finally Red Team is about daredevil stunt making where all the challenges are about being reckless and doing tricks. All of these events are best completed by pulling off chains. These chains are always related to the team’s specialties which are maintained by consistently pulling off the relevant techniques. Also, once any chain reaches a certain threshold you can perform special actions to further increase your score. This is provided you have purchased the special ability by collecting tokens strewn throughout the courses. There are six stages with three events each, all increasing in difficulty and medal requirements to access. That’s pretty much all there is to the game, and this is where the game starts to feels like it’s actually half of a product.

While there is a hub world where you can look at tutorials on how to play, check leaderboards/achievement lists, or reselect your team, the hub world is pretty empty. It is wasted potential for exploration, unless you just want to mess around in your ride. Speaking of rides, you can change and purchase custom paint jobs with the tokens collected in the various events. As for the previously mentioned multiplayer, it is not immediately available out of the gate, and must be selected via a press of the Triangle button before selecting any event. This activates “Hot-Seat Mode”, and it works like a ‘pass-the-controller-to-the-next-player’ fashion. This backwards approach to local only multiplayer is truly asinine and unforgivable especially since this game is targeted to children. You’d expect it to be child friendly and accessible! But Firebrand Games couldn’t be bothered to make a proper multiplayer mode. Appalling.

At least the game is functional, even if it does provide you with bland commentary with stereotypical foreign accents: Some of whom try way too hard to sound cool. The music is similarly bland, generic rock music just put there to be functional and ‘cool’. While this game serves as a somewhat competent challenge based driving game, it feels like it’s just the other half of what could have been a complete experience. While it has a budget price of $40 USD, I can scarcely recommend it as a rental. Pass.

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