Customer Reviews

Hot Wheels Beat That

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

[ASIN:B000TG72RE Hot Wheels: Beat That]]
We bought this game for our 3 year old son. We were looking for a racing game without profanity, blood, etc. and Hot Wheels Beat That only has weapons that slow down the opponents without blood and gore. At first we thought he wouldn't take to playing the game or it would be too difficult for his age, but it took him less than a month of watching us play before he picked up the joypad himself and started playing. After that, he mastered the races in another month. We unlocked all the events and races for him on single player mode and we all play with him on multiplayer. He beats us all (no letting him win anymore) and he loves the drift, draft and jump features of the game. He not only has the highest points in the family, he's already beaten the resident expert in video games (his dad). One thing our son discovered that we don't like much about the game is that sometimes he can make his car jump off the board. The race continues below you while your car floats in the air accumulating points for jumping. You have to quit the event and start it again and you lose your points. It also has a good replay value, because you can open shortcuts that shave off precious seconds of your race time, especially in the eliminator races. Overall, it's a great game for little ones. If you're looking for good, clean, car racing fun, this is the game you want.

I read mixed reviews of Hot Wheels for the Wii, but I'm glad I ignored the negative reviews. My 6 year old boy just loves the game and it provides enough challenge so his dad can enjoy racing against him. Game play is easy to pick up with the Wii remote and we've had fun unlocking different games. The one negative is that you can only unlock games in single player mode rather than two player mode.

In summary, this game is great for father-son bonding!

First off: I'm used to console games being reasonably robust, or at least not with bugs that require hard resets of the console, but this one is a whole different world. It seems way too easy to get yourself into a state where you have to abort the current race/event, and try it again. The most common is having the car somehow jump off of the defined play area. This results in a somewhat comical view of the car dropping indefinitely, racking up huge bonus jump points. But since you can never land and resume the race, you're forced to abort and try again.

Another more annoying fault will cause the game to lock up entirely, very often with the controller vibration running on high. So you have to get up and hold in the Wii power button to reset the console.

So the game isn't very high quality, and you have to have a high tolerance for defects.

The worst problem is that it is hard for young kids to drive, as others have noted. What games that appeal to young kids really need is a simplified driving mode where you can't get stuck in corners, or into other spots where you have to have a higher level of sophistication and understanding to recover.

Now for the good part: Since it brings something they're familiar with, hot wheels cars, into a video game, they seem to be endlessly amused even just watching. So it means I get to play more, but I'd rather a game that they could play with me.

This game is not as little-kid friendly as I was hoping for. While the cars are great and appealing for my 5-year-old son and 3 1/2-year-old twin sons, they had a hard time controlling the cars around the courses and accomplishing the goals. All three of them were frustrated trying to play it. It definitely wasn't those "pick up and play" games. Mario Kart is a far better choice for both little-kids and us adults, and for those looking for an easier "pick up and play" game.

This game is Wii Wheel compatible and up to 2 players. There are 3 difficulties, Easy, Medium, and Hard (they are also referred as Turbo, Nitro, and Inferno modes). You must earn Hot Wheel Flame points in order to unlock Medium, Hard, and other tracks and cars. You earn Flame points by placing in the events and completing the 2 goals for each event. There are 4 types of events: quickrace, eliminator, rampage, and tournament. Quickrace is a normal race, elminator is every 30 seconds the car in last place is eliminated, rampage is destroying a certain number of cars with rockets in a certain amount of time while racing around the track, and tournament is the best of 4 races.

You jump or drive through weapon rings to get a weapon or speed boost item. Similar to Mario Kart's question mark boxes. There is also a Hot Wheel's icon that you can fill up to supercharge your items by scoring points using drifting, drafting, and jumping. Drifting is holding down the trigger and sliding around corners, drafting is just getting behind cars.

The shortcuts are only possible if you have a rocket or something, because you'll have to break through a wall marked with a target. Sometimes it takes two shots or a boost speed may break it open, but it is difficult to tell which does which. Also there are green rings, which give a boost speed, scattered throughout the tracks.

The steering is okay, but even if it were considered bad, there isn't much of a penalty (if any) to your speed by grinding against the edge of the rails. You'll only lose major speed by crashing into walls or objects if you hit them head-on. Also if you fall off the track, like a cliff or hole, you automatically respawn very fast, so it doesn't seem to set you back too much.

The game is broken down like this:

Bedroom Maps (4 Variations):

Quickrace x 4
Elminator x 4
Rampage x 4
Tournament (4 quickraces)

Mini Golf (4 Variations):

Quickrace x 4
Elminator x 4
Rampage x 4
Tournament (4 quickraces)

Attic (4 Variations):

Quickrace x 4
Elminator x 4
Rampage x 4
Tournament (4 quickraces)

Bowling Alley (4 Variations):

Quickrace x 4
Elminator x 4
Rampage x 4
Tournament (4 quickraces)

If you completed all of the above, you have completed Easy mode. To summarize, that is 64 race events and 104 goals. Only half of them are real races, where you place 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.

Most of the goals take an extra time or two to complete and they can become very tedious. And you must do the goals if you intend to unlock more cars, tracks, and progress through the game. This is the worst part of the game. It is way too time consuming and no fun at all. Also, some of the quickraces last 3-6 minutes, which is too long.

In the tournament modes, one of the goals they'll ask you to get is a certain number of points by drafting, drifting, and jumping and the points for each tournament is increased. You will most likely be unable to accomplish 1st place and get the amount of points in the later tournaments. So you will have to redo the entire tournament just for the points (and that's 4 races at 5 minutes per race, not including the time you spend getting points). And since the most surefire way of getting points is drifting, you'll be spinning around in circles doing donuts for ten minutes and that is no exaggeration. That's 35 minutes just to get that one goal.

There are even more ridiculous goals, like getting a certain weapon and hitting an opponent at a certain part of the stage (ie "In the chemistry area"). Since you can't control which weapon you get, it can take a really long time and is based solely on luck. I would forfeit any hope of actually racing and go back and forth through the weapon rings until I got the item I needed, and would have to wait till one of the cars passed my way. Very long, very boring.

There a few bugs in this game I ran into. More than once the music would stop playing after a race. And another bug that only happened to me once, I finished the race but I didn't get a victory screen and my car just kept racing around the track. I had to reset and lose what I just won, which would have been really annoying if it were a more difficult goal or race.

If you're like me, and want to unlock everything and beat all the modes, I would pass on this game, since the goals needed to unlock things are extremely boring, time consuming, and can get very frustrating.


To compare with Mario Kart:
Time per race:
Hotwheels: 3-6 minutes
Mario Kart: 1-3 minutes

Races per mode:
Hotwheels: 64 + 104 goals (168 combined)
Mario Kart: 32

Unique Tracks:
Hotwheels: 16
Mario Kart: 32

This is a fun, 4-star, arcade-style racing game on my xBox360; unfortunately the game doesn't play nearly as well on the Wii, probably a porting problem with the Wii's motion-sensitive controllers, but it could also be a system resource thing. I have played other racing games on the Wii that don't have this problem; it's too bad because I really like this game on the 360 but it's not fun at all on the Wii, in fact it's barely playable.

Sorry, people:( please read the product information: this isn't a pre-school game. It's great for someone 8 years and up, I bought it for my son with cerebral palsy to use with the nerf steering wheel and I assist him with driving hand over hand. Great game and yes it has some challenges, but it is a hot wheels game for kids. FUN, FUN, and lots of FUN, but not real easy for a pre-schooler. So, lighten up on this game people, if it is too hard for you... move back to the 70's and play table tennis. EXCELLENT GAME FOR KIDS OVER 8 AND PEOPLE THAT HAVE A CLUE:)

OK, we did have about three times where we did have to do a hard re-start of the Wii to get past a freeze but with all of the fun my son and I have had with this we hardly noticed. The price alone was a great selling point! I first only picked this up since the price was less than $20.00 and my 4 YO Son LOVES his toy cars. I didn't really expect much from it. Once he played it, I was more than thrilled I bought this for him!
Since it is intended for 8 years and up (take note if you want to get this for a younger child) I figured if he didn't take to it right away we could try him out with it again as he got older. The first race or two he had some problems getting around the track without hitting the wall or falling into a pitfall. I just re-assured him and told him to keep trying and he would get better, and boy did he ever. He and I have a lot of fun racing against eachother and working as a team taking turns to unlock different tracks and cars. He LOVES this game and we have a lot of fun together with it. The implementation is ingenious! it looks like you are actually racing on a track that a kid would set up! The tracks are vastly different, both in how to best race them and the atmosphere they create. His two favorites are the Underwater Mini Golf and the trainset in the attic. The controls work great in my opinion and really feel right using the Wii mote like a steering wheel. As another reviewer said and I concur "A great game for Father and Son Bonding! (Especially since I loved Hotwheels when I was a kid!)

First of all, I have to say how cute this game is to play! Once you pick your car, they race all over what appears to be a little boy's bedroom. They go through the dust bunnies, through the soap suds, then under the floorboards where they have all their special races. It's just plain cute and not overly hard. Probably, should be at least 6 to play it since it does require the manueverability and reflexes. But other than that, it's not too hard but it's just right for a beginning WII player. Super cute, not too much violence (you can blow up the other cars), and not too hard. Highly recommend!

Love it, love it! This game is great for my whole family. Although it is only single or 2 player, the rest of the family loves to watch the others play. The better you get at playing single player, the more cars and layouts are opened up. Some layouts are more difficult than others. The best thing is there are weapons but no real violence to the game. My husband loves spending time racing my 12 year old to see who will win. It has been a great bonding game. I would highly recommended it.