Hot Wheels: Infinite Rush PS5 Review. Bigger isn’t always better and going the open-world route doesn’t mean it’s automatically superior to what came before. Milestone Interactive ought to be aware of this because after two blazing entries in the Hot Wheels racing franchise with Hot Wheels Unleashed and Hot Wheels Unleashed 2, they’ve decided to expand the formula into an explorable open-world set across four distinct islands. What you’re left with is a racing game as competent as its predecessors in many regards, but ironically feels shallower despite its hugeness.
Hot Wheels: Infinite Rush Review (PS5)-Shot Wheels
Previous Hot Wheels games were linear circuit-based racing games stuffed with quirky and enjoyable circuits with numerous ramps, plentiful boosts, and an aura that mimicked the glee of playing with physical Hot Wheels race sets like you were a child in the 90s. You felt the speed and inertia, yet the playfulness in the Unleashed games was an intrinsic part of the Hot Wheels experience in a digital format.
Infinite Rush takes this rad formula and buffs it up to unprecedented levels for no apparent or wholly worthwhile reason. Yes, it’s still cool to collect a bevy of diverse Hot Wheels cars spanning the disciplines from speedy to drifty to classy, and there are loads of activities to fill your time, but you’ll soon find out after tucking into it, that Infinite Rush’s ambitions involve far more bloat than the Hot Wheels name deserves.
Islands In The Sun
Each of the four islands in Infinite Rush contain a slew of challenges to engage in, races to compete in and collectibles to snap up. Each of the four islands contain a litter of icons representing each activity, and more of them become unlocked once you complete races on the main story path, so you’ve got tons to keep you busy.
By completing any of these activities you are rewarded with a bronze, silver or gold medal supposing you meet the requirements to obtain any of them, and they’ll help you level up so you can take on the Rush Masters, who are the boss racers of Infinite Rush you’ll clash with in a duel. Once you’ve soundly defeated a Rush Master, you can open up a new island on the map, and continue to make level progress towards the next Rush Master.
Structurally, things work how you would expect them to work in an open-world racer of Infinite Rush’s ilk. However, it is strange that your ranking isn’t ongoing because each island resets your rank and you can only level up after completing challenges on the island that you’re currently on. This method does make each island feel distinctive, and you can keep track of everything you’ve done on each island through the archipelago map, though it is unorthodox for your ranks to reset because you should feel empowered by every event you’ve conquered, rather than feeling you’ve got to start from the bottom and work your way up after unlocking a new island.
Blasting through the map is a doddle with little standing in your way. You might say it’s a destructible open-world, and in some way this is indeed the case, though it’s not very exciting. The design of each island bears a stark reminder of Sonic Frontiers, because the signature orange tracks are all over the place amidst each unique map in the same way Sonic Frontiers pulverises its map with loop-de-loops. While they certainly give Infinite Rush that oh-so-important Hot Wheels appeal, they can also be a pain in the tuckus, as you can easily tumble off them if you aren’t careful. These tracks often hide secrets like stickers, Hot Wheels logos and even a few activities, so it’s paramount to traverse them if you want to collect everything.
Islands are represented by iconic beasts like an ape, an octopus, a snake and a dragon. Within them, there are a handful of locations you can take snaps of courtesy of a photo-snapping activity, allowing you to take photos of stand-out features like a laboratory, a fire station, an alligator and pics of the poster beasts themselves. Usually you’ll need a specific type of vehicle to successfully complete these postcard-worthy shots, but this photoshooting pastime is a fantastic aside from the pressure of racing.
Ride Or Decry
Infinite Rush would be nothing without a collection of sweet Hot Wheels rides to race. There are 150 rides spanning four disciplines including Drifters, Speeders, Titans and Versatiles. Many of them can be bought at specific dealerships throughout the four islands, and they can be obtained by completing delivery missions, where you need to race a new whip as fast as possible to a dealership and nab a gold medal to unlock them to add to your burgeoning collection.
Collecting vehicles is the best reason to play any Hot Wheels game, and all the excess fluff in the open-world is merely superfluous. The Unleashed games didn’t require an open world full of different types of events to be enjoyable. Infinite Rush has no business existing as an open-world racer, but it is evident that the evolution of the series was go bigger, but the end result is a racer that feels hollow, lonely and totally devoid of character.
There are a copious amount of challenges to partake in, featuring stunt variants where you need to destroy every object in your path; find a glowing flame on the map and race to it; the aforementioned delivery trials, where you’re tasked with racing a spangly new vehicle to the nearest dealership in a set amount of time; boost trials that encourage you to blast through checkpoints as fast as you can or keep the speed up to achieve the highest rewards, and drift zones to keep your car sliding and smoking around corners to bolster your score. There are also Daredevil racers you can locate and face off with head-to-head, and beating them can net you their vehicle to add to your collection.
The main set of race events boasts variety too with an ensemble of drift challenges, way point challenges, time trials, and a tyre smashing event where you crash into tyres of varying sizes to rack up a points chain and multiplier in order to achieve the highest total point score at the end. These events are situated at key locations on the map, and more of them unlock as you level up-so return visits to familiar locations is a necessity.
Hot Wheels of Misfortune
As for the actual racing, Infinite Rush feels like the Unleashed games with nary a noticeable difference. Hot Wheels are toy cars, and they certainly feel like toy cars as they’re fast but are easy to flip over, especially now there’s a huge open-world full of obstacles in your way outside of the race events.
In terms of the types, the most enjoyable to use are the Speeders due to their speed, which you’ll need more often than not to be competitive in races. Drifters are pretty awesome as they make cornering a lot of fun and are handy cars to use for the numerous drift trial events you’ll find in the open world. The Titan class features a set of heavy and aggressive vehicles that are tough to intimidate and are great for barging competition out of the way-it’s just a shame there isn’t a race event that capitalizes on their brute strength. Oh, and be aware that you’ll be required to use Titans during drift events, so get ready to bend these stubborn mules unwillingly around corners. Versatiles are all-rounders and can get the job done on any occasion, even despite their more capable competition.
Although it appears that a lot of thought went into how big and adventurous things feel, not much attention was paid to the ear-grating soundtrack. The tunes in Hot Wheels are repetitive and barely noticeable, but when they do become noticeable, it’s because they’re awful and haven’t been given much thought nor sparkle. Maybe the soundtrack echoes the haphazard approach to making Infinite Rush open-world, but the zinging electronic beats frazzle the mood, which is ironic given the high energy vibes they try to give off and fail awkwardly in doing so.
The Wheely Woeful World of Infinite Rush
With all that has been crammed into Infinite Rush, it’s apparent that the mindset of creating this entry was to give Hot Wheels enthusiast gamers more to do, but consequently it feels exactly like the name but in the worst way possible. As highlighted above, Hot Wheels: Infinite Rush has no business existing as an open-world experience, regardless of how appreciable it is that Milestone have stuffed the game with so much to do. Just because open-world games are in vogue, doesn’t mean Mattel’s Hot Wheels licence required it, but it does mean there must’ve been either a limited amount of imagination on how to evolve the series, or that the powers that be wanted an open-world to bring a wider appeal to the franchise.
Whatever the case, the core Hot Wheels experience is here and there’s lots to do, but with a dearth of personality nor a reason to be as big as it is, Infinite Rush is every bit as hollow as it is huge. No amount of collecting everything and completing everything will mask this entry’s lack of ambition, and in spite of all that it does well, these wheels aren’t Hot, they’re tepid.
Hot Wheels: Infinite Rush is out now on PS5, Xbox Series S/X, Nintendo Switch 2 and PC.
The review copy was generously provided by the publisher.