Hotshot Racing

Ten years later, the arcade racer is finally reborn

PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One

Developer Lucky Mountain Games, Sumo Digital Publisher Curve Digital

Format PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One

Origin UK

Release June

We are delighted to report that Hotshot Racing plays exactly the way it looks like it does. As we turn into the first corner, the slightest squeeze of the brake button sees our car’s back end slip out, tyres squealing as we enter the first of many, many drifts. As we wrestle the vehicle around the turn, walking that delicious arcade-racing tightrope between oversteer and understeer, our boost bar slowly fills. We exit the turn and trigger it, surging ahead of the pack, almost feeling the wind in our hair. Gawd, it’s been too long.

Hotshot Racing is not merely content to be a throwback to a bygone age of gaming: it simply revels in it, and so do we. The soundtrack, all pumping hardcore and clattering breakbeats, evokes a vibe and spirit that has all but disappeared from driving games in an era of obsessive simulation backed by soporific licensed tunes. The 16 racetracks in the build we play are absurdist pastiches of real-world locations – from the Hoover Dam to the Grand Canyon to the Las Vegas strip all in the space of 15 seconds, the track running into a casino and out the other side – and the sort of silly spectacle left behind by the genre’s drive for realism. One track runs through a waterpark, and as you descend into the aquarium a dolphin somersaults right over the road. If it sounds joyous, well, that’s because it is.

This build is a work in progress, but it’s certainly getting there, with 16 courses that are split, Mario Kart- style, across four grands prix. There are multiple characters to choose from, their archetypes straight out of the ’90s arcade-game style guide (plummy Brit, brash American, actual robot) and each has their own backstory, mid-race voice lines and grand-prix victory cinematic. They each have their own set of four vehicles, their stats displaying the usual tradeoffs between acceleration, top speed and drifting ability. Cosmetics for both motor and motorist are unlocked through play, some bought with cash you earn while racing, others unlocked by completing various challenges. The latter represent a sop to modernity that we’re not sure the game really needs – particularly the progress trackers on the lengthier tasks that pop up needlessly at the end of every race.

If all this suggests a game that offers little in the way of surprise, it’s only because we haven’t discussed the AI yet. While we must take into account this isn’t the final game, in their current form your fellow racers are absolute brutes, seemingly thoroughly schooled in the early Gran Turismo- era cheese tactic of using the pack to brute-force your way around sharp turns. They stick to their desired racing line without a care for the possible consequences, and the results can be chaotic. Sometimes it works in your favour, the rear-ender on your way into a turn that kicks off a drift for you. Most of the time it has the opposite effect. Happily they haven’t yet discovered the power of a nitro boost on the final straight.

The presence of a boost mechanic means it’s hard to ascertain whether the AI benefits from rubber-banding: it is hardcoded into the game, in a way. But all our races, regardless of difficulty level, are thrillingly close-fought, our victories rarely measured by more than a few tenths of a second.

We have some UI quibbles – putting your current position in the bottom-left of the screen, the last place you want to be looking when driving through an aquarium at 150mph, is a rather odd decision. And we’re unable to run the rule over the game’s other modes, Cops N Robbers and Drive Or Explode. But already Hotshot Racing is brimming with promise. It’s a long-overdue revival of one of gaming’s most cruelly forgotten genres – and a game that’s been long in the making, with the original concept dating back almost a decade and only becoming a reality when Sumo Digital came on board in 2018. As the project at last enters the final stretch, it looks well positioned for a spot on the podium.

It’s not merely content to be a throwback to a bygone age of racing: it simply revels in it

While the low-poly visuals nod to Virtua Racing, the main sources of Hotshot’s inspiration come from later in the Sega oeuvre: it’s Sega Rally by way of OutRun2 with a dash of Burnout’s boost management

RIGHT In Cops N Robbers, cars have energy bars, police are suitably aggressive, and the last ‘robber’ on the field takes the prize

ABOVE The slightest feather of the brake trigger as you turn a corner is enough to get your drift going.

TOP The whole game puts a smile on our face, but none of it quite so consistently as its simply made but gorgeous sun.

TOP The checkpoint timer seems redundant in a race setting: if you’re running out of time you’ve surely already lost. Better to give race position prominence.

ABOVE The game borrows from Mario Kart the concept of a boost start. The margin for error seems much finer here, however