Oh, nostalgia, you cruel beast. What guy does not fondly remember pushing small die-cast cars around their house as fast as possible? Those youthful good-time memories are exactly what Hot Wheels: Beat That relies on. The good news is Activision actually gets much of Hot Wheels right. Sadly, after a few spins, you will care as much about this game as you do about the real miniature die-cast cars at this point.
The best part is the game's inventive, realistic tracks. Well, realistic from the point of view of an ant driving one of the mini cars. Tracks are set up in one of four 'zones', including bedroom, mini-golf course, and bowling alley. Despite the scarcity of locales, the game makes a valiant effort at keeping the tracks feeling fresh throughout the many events that take place in each.
The game does a solid job at making the tracks feel as though a youngster really created them, refusing to rely too heavily on the snap-together plastic tracks. Most of the action takes place on the floor, with smartly placed obstacles such as books, toys, or dominos, with the tracks used mostly for changing elevations to the toy box or bookshelf or for slick loops. The issue with having the tracks feel so created by youngsters is that they eventually all lead to convoluted, fairly wide-open spaces, where it is not quite clear where the heck to go.
The tracks also feature well-placed ramps and jumps, with some narrowly placed, leaving racers without much room for error; resulting in either a solid jump or a smash into a barrier. At the top of most jumps, racers will find one of three glowing rings to fly through. Flaming rings give racers a regular weapon or boost to enhance their chances against the other racers, blue rings are rarer and grant supercharged weapons, and green rings provide an instant, temporary speed boost to shoot you well ahead of the competition. The weapons, from missiles to mines, do a solid job at creating an action-packed battle-racing environment, spreading the damage equally between cars in front and behind you.
In one of the game's many limitations, cars can only hold one weapon at a time, and driving through another weapon ring does not replace what you currently have. Your weapons only clear if you fall off the course or once they are used. This renders most of your forward-firing weapons useless, thanks in large part to the green boost rings. You will spend the vast majority of the game well in front of enemy racers, even though the game tries to keep the races competitive.
In addition, the game constantly fills your 'supercharged' meter (in the shape of the Hot Wheels logo) based on successfully landed jumps and drifting behind enemy cars. The idea is that when the meter is filled, you can hit 'X' to upgrade your current weapon to its supercharged version. Unfortunately, the meter fills far too slowly, leaving you with a supercharged weapon for the last half of the last lap; at which point you will likely have victory well in hand.
