Not long after Micro Machines comes another toy car racing game in the form of Hot Wheels. The games themselves, however, are completely different, with Hot Wheels getting a more 3D behind the car perspective and being heavily focused on stunts.

Each track in the game has a lot of jumps, and while in the air your car spins wildly as you turn the analogue stick (and you can hold R to also to barrel rolls). Better stunts will give you more boost, which will let you go faster. The handling feels pretty great, and you can to a lot of spins in a single jump (it reminded me a bit of Excite Truck). There are also items you can pick up for additional boosts and effects.

Instead of going for the “racing around you home angle” that Micro Machines (and the latest Hot Wheels game) do, it instead has Hot Wheels track segments in various American-inspired locations. It comes across like you’re playing inside the environments created for the old commercials for the toys. There aren’t many tracks, but they do have alternate routes and shortcuts – some of them simply skipping loops in the track. There is one standout track called Helicrash which has a really nice section where you go up a steep ramp, and have to come back down to get to another route.

Hot Wheels Turbo Racing is a lot of fun to begin with, but without many tracks, it does wear off fairly quickly. It’s a nice little distraction, but as a full game it would be quite disappointing.

Fun

Unfortunately, stunts are simply a case of pushing the analogue stick up, down or sideways, with none of the intricacy of similar systems in Wave Race and 1080° Snowboarding. And most of the tracks are so narrow that winning a race is merely a matter – à la Extreme G – of bouncing off walls until you reach the finish line.

Jes Bickham, N64 Magazine #36. Review Score: 61%

Remake or remaster?

Perhaps some tracks inspired by these ones in the new game?

Official ways to get the game.

There is no official way to get Hot Wheels Turbo Racing