In this review, we collect the gears in the GameCube game Hot Wheels – Velocity X. We find out how well this racing game plays.
This game was released in 2002.
The game’s storyline features Max Justice, a young driving expert who is the son of Dr. Peter Justice. While racing against someone, the main lab has been robbed and rigged to explode. When Max Justice arrives, he is too late and the lab is destroyed. It is then up to Max Justice to find how who is behind this and take back what has been stolen.
There are a number of modes. This includes drag race (which pits you against multiple opponents in a race), joyride (a free roam mode), challenge mode (where you take on different objectives under various constraints), and story mode (the main mode of the game).
A large portion of the game revolves around the story mode. You taken on various challenges which almost always has a time limit. Hitting barrels or red stop watches reduces time. Meanwhile, green stopwatches adds bonus time (anywhere between 3 – 10 seconds). There are races that pit you against an opponent, deathmatch battle challenges, and time attack challenges.
Each mission has a series of objectives. Thing of these objectives as legs. You generally have to make it all the way to the end to survive. Sometimes, when this involves tough fights, this can be easier said than done.
Along the way, there are various item pickups you can obtain. This can include point bonuses which can net you anywhere between 100 – 500 points each. Points can also be accumulated by performing stunts as well. With the exception of specific objectives, points just go to your boost. Tap your accelerator twice to use it. Boosts can really help you get through various races more quickly.
Other pickups include weapons. Examples include tire rippers (can damage cars that pull up beside you), armour repaid (each charge fills your shield repair to maximum), oil cans, machine guns, magnet mines, loud speaker weapons, and more. These different weapons can give you certain advantages depending on how well you know how to use your weapons. For example, if you see your opponent dead ahead of you, you can aim your car directly at your opponent and unload your entire arsenal of magnet mines, cutting down damage significantly in the process.
As you progress, you can unlock tracks, starter weapons, and other cars.
Challenge mode is similar to story mode, only without the story. It also features a large number of objectives for you to complete and features no opponents for you to take on. Your missions will change slightly to compel you to avoid all orange barrels, collect all the gears, destroy all the boxes, or reach a checkpoint before time expires. Later challenges can mix three different objectives together to provide that extra bit of challenge. Completing this mode not only unlocks other features in the game, but also rewards you with a drivers license. The harder the difficulty, the higher the grade performance you’ll get once you beat challenge 18.
For me, the first thing that sticks out to me is how bad the story mode is. It isn’t the objectives or the gameplay so much as the writing. The game is constantly throwing new characters at you which makes it hard to care about hardly any of them. The game does a good job at telling me how much everyone knows the characters, but doesn’t hardly do anything with character development. Honestly, it can be touch and go trying to keep up given how thin the details are.
The second problem with this that I find is the lack of any sort of championship mode. When I got into this, I thought, “hey, a story mode. Great, lets try that out before taking on the championship mode!” When I finished story mode, I learned that the closest thing is an arcade mode where you set up the rules for single races. This definitely wasn’t what I was expecting out of a racing game or a Hot Wheels racing game. It left me feeling like this game is just a bunch of extra features not found in Hot Wheels Turbo Racing.
The track design was OK, but nothing huge. It often felt like the tracks were a bit on the bland side and the developers knew it. So, they covered up the blandness with added obstacles and required item pickups just to make things interesting. In the end, though, it felt like I was running through a training mode of a game where the main mode was simply not in the game.
The game did have good moments, though. Sometimes, the battle mode races offered some interesting gameplay where I found myself forming interesting strategies to carry me through. This includes entering battle mode with almost no health or modes where I needed sift through the level looking for a decent weapon to unleash on opponents. So, the situations can be, at times, quite interesting.
Generally speaking, it is possible to enjoy the game and get some fun out of it. Unfortunately, you are going to be left with a cheap experience by the time you get to the end of it. The track designs can be a bit bland at times, the story mode has a very thin plot, and story and challenge mode can end up feeling like a training mode for a main mode that doesn’t really exist. Still, battle mode parts can prove to be an interesting experience even if this isn’t exactly a new thing. An OK game, but nothing to get overly excited for.
Graphically speaking, this is a pretty hit and miss game. Where this game really swings and misses is the cut scenes. Most of the time, you are simply stuck in this lab setting with two screens of talking heads. The talking heads only really animate with lower lips akin to console games found two generations ago. On the other hand, the models of different cars are nicely varied and work quite well. The effects are not bad. Finally, tracks are generally so-so. So, a game that has strengths and weaknesses.
Audio is surprisingly weak this time around. The music sounds a lot like San Francisco Rush: Extreme Racing, only a little weaker. To make matters worse, there is a limited number of tracks in the game, so you’ll find yourself hearing some of the same music repeatedly with sometimes little variety between tracks. The voice acting is decent enough and the sounds are OK. Unfortunately, I think this game missed the mark on this department.
Overall, this is an OK game if you want to pay the pass the time. It has a number of weaknesses including somewhat weak track design, slightly limited gameplay, and weak storyline. Battle sequences can be fun at times, but otherwise, it’s hard to really pinpoint any particularly good things about his game. Graphics are pretty hit and miss and audio misses more than it hits. A pretty bland title that is kind of forgettable.
Overall
Furthest point in game: Beat story mode and got the D+ license.
General gameplay: 16/25
Replay value: 6/10
Graphics: 6/10
Audio: 2/5
Overall rating: 60%
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.