Hot Wheels Monster Trucks: Stunt Mayhem is the latest Hot Wheels racing game, but it offers something a little different than the usual ‘small cars on Hot Wheels tracks’.
As the title suggests, this is all about monster trucks. The objective is simple: several arenas are presented to you, and you must drive around doing tricks and hitting objects to score points. The more points, the better. Each level has a series of objectives to beat (usually trick or damage scores) and awards medals for each. In turn, you unlock more trucks to play with.
I was quite surprised at the full suite of tricks available. Despite it being a Hot Wheels game, the physics system of throwing these trucks around is really quite nice, and as well as the standard flips and barrel rolls you can also do wheelies and endos – all requiring precise throttle/brake and stick control. This is very much a good thing as it shows the levels of the game. Anyone can pick this up and lark about, jumping around and smashing into things, but to fully maximise your scoring potential you need to ensure you’re hitting the relevant moves and objectives effectively.
It looks nice enough although I couldn’t figure out if I’m racing real trucks based on Hot Wheels (there is a proper crowd so I assume to) but the arena setup is very much that of one using the classic Hot Wheels orange track pieces. I assume it’s meant to be the former (a quick Google shows that Hot Wheels Monster Trucks is very much a real thing) with a bit of suspended belief – the most notable being the loop-the-loop.
The giant orange level appears on many levels. But to go through this high-scoring component, you need to find the key in the arena to unlock access. Once unlocked you’re free to drive it, but sadly this is done by pointing your truck at the entrance and then a canned animation takes over. This is probably for the best as the handling (or more specifically, the steering) of the trucks isn’t really sensitive enough, and goes from ‘barely anything’ to ‘full lock’ without much in-between.
Still, the thrills and spills on offer are quality. Arenas become increasingly complex filled with more ridiculous stunts and collectables (such as coins, or balloons to pop) which provide more than enough content for even the most hardened Hot Wheels Monster Truck fan.
The downsides? Well frame rate could be higher but probably won’t bother most of the target demographic here. There are Boss Fights at certain points which honestly are unnecessary filler (they basically require things to be found and collected followed by a dull cutscene) but I appreciate the effort of the developers to try and mix things up a bit.
So, is it worth a buy? Well, if you like monster trucks then I would say probably yes. There aren’t many monster truck games around, certainly less good ones, so if you’re interested then I think you probably won’t regret this.
Reviewed on PS5
