Hotshot Racing is a Arcade-style Racing game for PS4, XBONE, Switch, and PC, which was developed by Lucky Mountain Games and Sumo Digital, and published by Curve Digital.
This is a throwback arcade racing games of 90's era inspired by the likes of SEGA's Virtua Racing and Namco's Ridge Racer with low-polygonal visuals and simple driving mechanics which brings the reminiscent of old-school classics of racing genres from the past.
Back in my old days of 90's, I grew up playing some of the greatest racing games that I got really into with driving through the racing track, so I remember playing SEGA Rally Championship is one of my very first racing title, when my brother bought SEGA Saturn for first time came bundled with steering wheel controller, which blew me away to see how impressive the 3D racing game played on the system.
I also had fun playing the arcade cabinets of SEGA's Daytona USA and Namco's Ridge Racer at the amusement park where I sat on the driver seat filled with steering wheels, foot pedals, and gear shifts is the reason to like the arcade racing games.
Never forget about the drifting mechanics of Ridge Racer, the visual environments and co-driver voice of SEGA Rally Championship, and catchy tunes of Daytona USA is what made racing game so entertaining back then.
Going back to this today's gaming where arcade-racing genres are likely declined for awhile due to most of the people are heavily focusing on more realistic approach sim-racing games like SONY's Gran Turismo, Codemaster's series like Grid and Dirt, and Microsoft's Forza had gained many mainstream recognition for modern day gaming meaning that we will never see stuff like Burnout, Ridge Racer, SEGA Rally, F-Zero, and Motorstorm for future sequel in a light of the day.
However, I did see some of the indie game received an arcade-style racing like Trackmania Turbo, Inertial Drift, Redout, GRIP, and Horizon Chase Turbo are great alternatives to classic-racing games from the past especially with this game had caught my attention to pick up a copy for my PS4 to see how they able to capture this game's vision into an full arcade-style racing experience or is it not a game what we been expected?
It's depending on gameplay's driving mechanics, the visual's environment design choices, and the game's own content is what we gonna take a look and see in this review.
So without go further do, let's start the review.
Presentation
As you can see the visual presentation is quite identical to early SEGA's arcade racing games starting off from Virtua Racing is one of the SEGA's first title running on their Model 1 arcade system boards rendering a 3D polygonal graphics that display 180,000 polygons per second and running on 60 fps.
I like the feel of the visual design that appeals to those grew up back in early 90's with flat-shaded environments, color depth, and texture mapping vehicles is rather look impressive back then, so Hotshot Racing is one of the game that captures the 90's visual magic adding a colourful design and simplistic details of each locations.
You have coast filled with summer-like settings such as beach, windmills, cruise boat, volcano, palm-trees, blue sky, and ocean tubes with sea animals swimming around. The desert has ferris-wheel, city buildings, canyon, airplanes, underground, and casino room.
The jungle has wild animals, man-made sculptures, waterfall, and temple, and lastly the mountain has huge snowy hills, big huge castle, and foggy cave which adds the ambitious appealing to the fans of the early racing games of 90's era will be fully impressed to see this game visually.
Each of the drivers has different types of vehicles such as mostly standard stock-cars and prototype sport-cars, while one of them has formula-kart which I got to say I really liked what the design of the cars looked like in the game with cool logos, nice color palates, stylish wheel-design, and objects like bumpers, lights, and mirrors which is fully customisable on race shop that you can change the looks and style of each cars whatever you want that suits you the best.
This really captures the nostalgia of the old-school racing games that I am happy to see the game turned out to be looking great for the indie's game standards.
Overall, it has amazing presentation design and cool fully customisable vehicles.
Gameplay
The game has each of the game modes to play such as the grand prix has 4 championship cup with 16 tracks comes with 3 difficulties settings, while single-race has arcade, cop and robbers, and drive or explode which you can play these alone in solo or play with friends on ether local split-screen or online match, and lastly you can also practice your driving skill throughout the time trial.
You will select any of playable drivers with their 4 different vehicles which each of them has different attributes such as all balance, speed, acceleration, and drift.
The acceleration is used for increasing the rate of mph, the speed is showing how faster your car goes, the drift is used as driving techniques works for oversteers cars, and all balance is just the regular car balancing all threes attributes for beginners.
You are racing through the course with 7 racing opponents been participating on the race match, so your goal is to win the race by reaching to the goal line after reaching many laps as possible in 1st place position.
You will have an HUD display on the screen which shows mph indicator for the rate of acceleration, the lap that counts an complete full track per lap, the position shows if you or opponent have been placed on 1st or 8th, the time record shows how faster can you beat the latest record, the race map navigates the racing track with small dots representing player or opponent icon, the time limit appears on top which indicating the remaining time, and slipstream bar are used as boost speed capacity.
The left stick are used for steering which controls your vehicle, while holding right trigger to accelerate that made car go forward and the left trigger are used as brake or reverse that stops or slow down your vehicle as well as reversing your car backwards.
Depending which are two transmissions you have selected, the automatic is a self-shifting system that automatically changes the gear shift itself, while manual lets you change any gear shifting by clicking on two of the shoulder buttons, so these are the gear shift mechanics are used for changing the rate of speed during the gameplay.
Your car has ability to maneuver drift mechanics by simply clicking the brake button while holding left or right on the left stick makes your car sliding across the track while maintaining the control and driving the car though the corner, so drifting your car can increase your slipstream bar which allows you to boost the speed of your vehicle.
You can also change the perspective view during the race such as chase view which pans behind the car from distance, dashboard view shows the inside of car filled with steering wheel, back mirror and front windshield, and lastly the first-person view which gives you an option to choose any of these perspective that suits your playstyle preference.
I got to say each of the game modes on this game is absolutely fantastic that the game does deliver a stuff that I have wanted from any of racing game's genres. The grand prix mode is where you need to beat the championship race by earning many points as possible to become a 1st place tier which requires winning the race at 1st place position, so I also liked how the game sets with 3 difficulties options such as normal are designed for casual player, while hard has aggressive A.I level making it difficult to traverse opponent which I got to say it's plays fine for most part, but the issue with the A.I opponent is that they tended to bash you into the corners as well as making your car losing control during the race which felt kinda bit overdone, so I wish they should have balance out the A.I aggressive behaviour a bit that I didn't want end up keep crashing into the corners or out of the track when being attacked by 1 or 2 drivers.
Anyway I did manage to enjoy the grand prix mode on all 4 cups with no issue with the race track, so I'm glad that this mode is just like playing a good old retro days of SEGA's arcade racing, and I also enjoyed these single-race filled with 3 great modes such as arcade that is basically head to head match are perfect for ether solos or play with friends through split-screen or online, the cop and robbers is kinda like EA's Need for Speed series where you need to race through the tracks while evading the police cars as possible is surprisingly fun to play, and drive or explode puts you in challenge where you need to race through the tracks without slowing down your speed or else it will explode are also pretty fun too.
The best part of the game is that they added the free DLC content called big boss bundle which adds new championship cup for grand prix, 4 new tracks to play, and introducing barrel barrage which is a new game mode where you can attack opponent with the exploding barrel during the race is an nice addition to the game.
The gameplay plays butter smooth with easy to control driving mechanics which I didn't had an issue with the game itself. The vehicles controls fine with the left stick with no signs of sensitivity, the acceleration and brake feels responding with no input delays whatsoever, and I got to be honest with the drifting mechanics is somewhat plays better than the earlier arcade racing games which I believe the team must have implementing the precision of drifting control pretty well making it easier for newcomers to drive smoothly without off-balancing the vehicle, as well as being able to stay intact on the right track, so I am glad that they have reduced the annoying collisions from the earlier racing games in all thanks to wider track design.
Sadly the game does not have an option to re-mapping the buttons on the control menu because some people may not prefer the default controls as much, but still I'm fine with it as it should be which I'm pretty sure they will still get used with it.
The racing tracks design are looking great with straight-lines, curved, and twisty shaped roads which really adds the learning carves of driving skills delivering an overall racing experience with bigger challenge that makes the racing game so amazingly fun to play.
Overall, it has fantastic game modes, smooth driving controls, and great track design.
Graphics
The graphics in the game is quite solid for an old-school indie racing title with flat-shaded environments and objects, the texture mapping of roads and vehicles, and blocky-figured character design is drew much closer to SEGA's own racing games of 90's with colourful details, simplistic design of racing tracks, the use of lighting and shade effects, and visuals appealing of big environmental objects with larger stuff around that been added to the course is what captures the old-school nostalgia of 90's 3D arcade racing.
The game itself ran on 60 fps with no sign of slow-downs which played perfectly on single-player solo and local 4-player split-screen that anyone can able to properly enjoy their fast-paced racing game experience with the smoother frame-rate.
Overall, it has an impressive flat-shaded environments and objects, bold looking texture mapping of roads and vehicles, decent blocky-figured character, and ran on 60 fps of game's frame rate.
Music and Sounds
The soundtrack in the game is pretty solid, so it's more of a mix of SEGA's Super Monkey Ball and Namco's Ridge Racer thrown together in this game which was originally composed by Ross Tregenza, while the rest of the OST are completely been redone or made new ones by Jason Heine (A.K.A TheHeineHouse) and Waterflame did a splendid job of making an awesome 90's retro throwback OST.
I like the sound engine of vehicles and the sounds effects of environmental tracks is sounds absolutely stunning throughout the game, and I got to say that I didn't mind the driver's voice on the character's selection menu and in-game race match, but I got to say the voice announcer is sounds spectacular giving a classic racing game vibes to it.
Overall, it has solid soundtrack, stunning sound effects, and spectacular voice announcer.
Special Features
The game contains free DLC content such as Big Boss Bundle that I've mentioned before like new grand prix cup, 4 new race course, and new game mode barrel barrage been added to this game.
The game also has unlockable customisation parts for vehicle such as logo, bumpers, wheels, lights, and etc. It also has unlockable driver's suits as well in the game.
Overall, a cracking content.
Advantages
Amazing presentation design
Fully customisable vehicles parts
Fantastic game modes
Smooth driving controls
Great track design
Old-school visuals
Solid soundtrack
Free DLC content
Disadvantages
Lack of button re-mapping configurations
Overdone A.I aggressiveness
Final Verdict
Presentation 8/10 - amazing presentation design and cool fully customisable vehicles.
Gameplay 8.5/10 - fantastic game modes, smooth driving controls, and great track design.
Graphics 8/10 - impressive flat-shaded environments and objects, bold looking texture mapping of roads and vehicles, decent blocky-figured character, and ran on 60 fps of game's frame rate.
Music and Sounds 8/10 - solid soundtrack, stunning sound effects, and spectacular voice announcer.
Special Features 8.5/10 - new grand prix cup, 4 new race course, new game mode barrel barrage, and unlockable customisation parts.
Overall 8.5/10 - Hotshot Racing is an splendid early 90's throwback of classic arcade racing which I am glad this game turns out to be a surprisingly great racing title packed with fast-paced gameplay, retro-style visuals, a fun game modes with local split-screen and online match, giving you a choice of customising your cars, and has free content added to this game with new grand prix cup, 4 tracks, and new game mode that made the game worth picking up and play.
It does look and plays better than you could say Horizon Chase Turbo in terms of gameplay and graphics, and it bundles with free content adding extras into the game is an fantastic bonus for both physical and digital copies for all available platforms (also on Xbox Game Pass as well).
If you're into with the early style of old-retro racing classics like SEGA's Virtua Racing and Namco's Ridge Racer, then give this game worth a try and you will sure love this particular style of the arcade racing genres from the yesteryear.
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