There is a green meter in the lower-right portion of the screen that fills up as you pull off clean maneuvers and earn up to four boosts. Alternatively, misjudging a turn and slamming into the barrier can make your stomach sink, especially at the highest difficulty when each split-second matters.īoosts are earned throughout each race by successfully drifting and drafting. It feels great when you slide by your opponents and boost out of the back end. Experimenting with the amount of pressure applied to the L2 button and joystick to perfectly carve out a hard turn is the main hook of the gameplay. As you swing around a curve, there are audio-visual cues from smoking, squealing tires that help you decide when to pull out of the drift. As you approach a curve, you tap L2 to initiate the drift, then hold the joystick in the direction that your momentum takes you until it is time to straighten out. It is fairly easy to pick up, but requires a lot of practice to master. The highlight of the gameplay is the drifting. While the game does not feel blindingly fast like some arcade racers, there are enough mechanisms in play to give it a nice sense of speed. You can also draft other cars and use the extra juice to overtake them. There is a boost that can be activated with the press of a button, which tightens up the steering as it propels you forward and greater speeds. On a straightaway or gentle curve, there is a weightiness that makes slight corrections feel responsive without throwing your car across the track. The handling feels great and has some real depth to it. The tracks, car selection, and even menus are all vibrant and attractive in a way that appeals to children and older retro fans alike.

Every aspect of the game is bright, colorful, and full of fun energy. While Hotshot Racing does buck some of the trends of its genre, it also embraces the best parts of it. Some of these characteristics succeed in elevating the overall experience, but the lack of meaningful replayability works against them.

The drift-style handling is an attempt to provide more depth than similar racers. Its aesthetic is inspired by retro racers, but it maintains high levels of polish and performance. Hotshot Racing is an arcade racer that aims to prove that there is more under the hood than just cheap thrills. A code for the game was provided by the publisher for review purposes.

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