Blog

Hotshot Racing is here! From Curve Digital–a publisher whose other games I now have to go check out–comes a fun, colorful, low poly action racing game for PS4, XBox One, Steam, and Nintendo Switch! I’m pretty happy, because since my exploration of low poly, this is the first major release in this style which I’ve actually been able to try out on release day! I’m also going to try my hand at reviewing a single game for the first time in this post. It released at approximately . After the install, I took a deep breath and buckled in!

Start Your Engines

The game on PC is around 1.6GB to download and 3 something GB to install, which in my experience lately seems like a really good size. That’s not too important though. What is important, is how it plays. I started off with the British flag racer, Aston, and one of four vehicles, like the one above. There are 8 racers to choose from from different countries. Some cars are fast, some are slow–er, (not too slow, this is a racing game afterall)–some are efficient, and some drift tighter or looser.

This game has a sense of humor, but it doesn’t overdue it. Some of the racer’s catchphrases are a bit stereotypical of their nationality but it’s all pretty tongue-in-cheek. There’s also a shop system for upgrading your car, although that seems to have something to do with the achievement system and race rewards, which I’m working to figure out.

So, my first experience was “this look great.” I really didn’t even take time to look at the controls, I just experimented until it felt right. At first, I absolutely hated the drift controls. I kept sliding around and crashing over and over. I was really worried the game was going to be too much, but once I learned how they work hand in hand with the boost system, I totally got it.

Go For A Spin!

The tracks are pretty creative. I liked Area 41 in the desert races a lot. You can choose from Coast, Desert, Jungle, and Mountain. I had the best success rate with The Ocean, in the Coast tracks; the curves were fairly tame, and by then I had figured out the drift system.

One thing which is kind of fun in these modern day low poly games is the collision effects seem like they should be cheap because of the more primitive technology being used, but actually it allows for more creativity on the designers’ part. When I tested the cops and robbers race mode, my car gradually smashed and sparked, etc., however, it was in the muse of a smooth attention to crackling polygon detail.

I prefer single player mode most but the other modes are totally viable. I think this is going to be one of my go to games for a while. I love being able to load a game up play for a few minutes and then go back to what I was doing, yet having some solid game experiences.

Summary

It’s a great game. It really helped me understand some of the benefits of less complex graphic systems in new games and I totally recommend it. If you’d like to read more recent reviews with more complex discussions, I recommend checking out some other articles here at MrDavePizza.com.