Hot Wheels: Beat That! (DS) Review
Upon first glance at a title such as this, its generally quite easy to form an impression based on face value alone. Judging by the fact that the crux of the game involves racing small toy cars around various household environments, its clear that Hot Wheels: Beat That, is mainly aimed at Nintendo DS owners belonging to a young age bracket. Thats not to say that there is anything wrong with a game that targets a specific audience, but, in many cases, an official brand name or license is used to carry a game much further than its content should really allow. So is Hot Wheels DS just another bad apple with a license slapped across it, or a game you can enjoy just as much as your younger siblings? Unfortunately the developers have made a few assumptions regarding the audience who will be playing the game and after a short while playing the title I was reminded of one old saying in particular. Simple things amuse simple minds.
Stuck in Cruise Control?
The first thing that I must stress most importantly about this game is that there is nothing new. The game incorporates attributes from more popular games into its gameplay, such as the item/weapon item system from Mario Kart to provide a particular example. While it certainly isnt a crime to copy such a thing, the problem lies in the way these various elements are incorporated into the game. No visible effort has been made to make these elements unique or adapt them to the game, which results in all the pieces of the gameplay not fitting together. Even though the execution of such features is adequate and wont hinder your experience in physically progressing through the game, players will still get the feeling that its just not quite right.
Structurally, the game works on an achievement basis. At the beginning of the game only a certain number of levels are available to you and are arranged into three standard flavours of gameplay. The first and most self-explanatory is the race mode where the first one over the finish line wins. In the second you score yourself points by hitting enemies with items before time runs out and in the third mode the car coming in last place is eliminated at set time increments until only 1st place is left standing. Depending on where you place youll earn a certain number of Hot Wheels that you can think of as like medals for now. Earning more of them opens new stages allowing you to progress and each level also has two extra objectives that you can complete to earn extra Hot Wheels. They might include such things as hitting someone with a certain weapon or relate to performing certain tricks to reach a set point quota. However, some of them are horribly designed. One objective in particular caused me problems and that was to use an item to boost over the finish line. Now, while this sounded simple, I had to spend a good 20 minutes repeating the race until I finally scored the item required to complete the objective. This sort of lazy design seems to prevail in many aspects of the game and theres no doubt youll be feeling the heat after progressing far enough.
There are also few tricks in the game which earn you points while in a race, including drifting, jumping and tailgating. The problem is that theyre only useful for completing the secondary objectives. You might be told to accumulate a total of 200, 000 points in a single race from all your tricks or perform one high scoring trick. Whatever the case theyre easy to pull off and rarely cause you to go out of your way during a race. This is partially due to the fact that whatever vehicle you choose youll have no problem controlling it. While its obvious that theyre toys they handle nothing like a real car at all. It feels like youre driving a floating hovercraft as there isnt any resistance when turning or accelerating. In the end I found myself driving around the tracks with very little effort or interest for that matter. In short the game simply doesnt do anything special to hold your attention and despite being aimed at a younger generation there is still no excuse for being too average and too bland.
A blur, even when youre doing 20
The visuals in this game really dont do anything to rectify some of the niggles with the gameplay. To be honest theyre probably the most off putting thing about the game in its entirety. The first course you play is the bedroom, but you could barely recognise it as a bedroom if they hadnt told you otherwise. Its essentially a room with one or two objects in it and literally has no character about it whatsoever, with other levels being the same or worse. Most of the time youre either in a dark tunnel somewhere or cruising along admiring the simplicity of the wallpaper. The worst thing about it is that most of the time, youre stuck in an area with a particular theme for quite a long period of time and there is just nothing unique about the individual areas. Watching the same sort of scenery go past over and over makes the entire experience that much duller. While some of the later levels are an improvement, they still retain the same basic and generic feel. The cars are rather simple looking as well and are typical of what you would expect of a game where you race toy cars, with a basic variety of designs based on the car you choose. At any rate, the visuals qualify as below par considering the power of the DS handheld and go hand in hand with other elements of the presentation as being the worst part of the game.
Noise does not equal soundtrack
The choice of soundtrack for Hot Wheels: Beat That is actually fairly suitable considering the theme of the game. High tempo rock style tunes accompany the tracks and could possibly create quite an atmosphere if they didnt sound so distorted. Rather than adapting the sound to something that would actually sound appropriate coming from the DS speakers it seems as though its been a straight port from the games console cousins. The result ends up being noise that really doesnt do too much to motivate you as a player.
One for the Kids?
Despite the fact that Hot Wheels isnt title that stands out from the crowd the game actually has quite a reasonable amount of content with about 300 Hot Wheels to earn in total. While it certainly wont maintain the interest of anyone who could even remotely be considered a gamer, the simple nature of the title makes it a somewhat decent candidate for a present to a younger sibling or other similar family member who doesnt really play games often.
To be blunt, the game is simply a complete serving of mediocrity in every way. In sticking to tried and tested practices there is nothing neither horribly bad nor particularly good about Hot Wheels. I strongly suggest your money would be better spent if you go out and pick up Mario Kart instead; unless, of course, youre a 7 year old toy car fanatic.
Pros
Simple a good title for younger players
Cons
Audio and Visual Presentation is lacking
Not very challenging
Feels like a cheap rip-off of better racing titles
Net package is dull and unoriginal
