HOT WHEELS UNLEASHED 2 - Turbocharged

Biggest complaint upfront: The new side swipe mechanic is not fun. It feels bad to use on other players and when you get hit it typically sends you off the track and respawns you in last. This is exemplified in the difference between online and local. I have seen few people using it aggressively but the ai will use it CONSTANTLY to knock you off the track. Online has gotten major improvements. The match no longer ends immediately after the first player finishes and that makes a huge difference. Offline is mostly more of the same, time trials are slightly less brutal, new cut scenes are skipable, and the new mode waypoint is kinda fun. Loot boxes are replaced by a rotating shop and a litteral slot machine. Livery and track editors are the same as the first game. This is still not a kids game. While the cars are toys and the cutscenes are bad cartoons the difficulty curve is still stiff. The jump mechanic makes mistakes slightly more forgiving but the side swipe kicks it back up to 11

Really fun game to play with friends. Mechaics are very good except when you hit a wall you are stuck on that wall. None of your items transfer from the first game. For online, you only get 20 seconds to pick your car, makes it hard when you have over 140 cars. Can that timer be removed?

No body is playing this, every game is dead or players who just leave and end the whole game. Should have kept working on the first game, this was a highly expensive (unnecessary) Cash grab.

Great racing mechanics and much less "floppy" than the original. However, and there are quite a few of them, the tracks themselves later on have mechanics that are flat out not explained and the campaign restricts you more and more as it goes on, almost to tedium. The "shunting" battle implementation is atrocious and often ruins an entire race if online which makes you not even want to play it completely ruining the otherwise solid flow of the races. As far as liveries go, the community is constantly having art erased for no reason while completely innappropriate and sexual things are never taken down. It's suspect and perverted for a family friendly game based on a childs toy to censor willy nilly and purposely ignoring blatantly immoral content for a non adult rated game. It's gross. And to top it off the livery editor has nothing new, not even a straight line, in comparison to the last game as if they just copied and pasted a majority of the content over all just to resell it.

Since the release on GAME PASS, it seems that this game is suffering from review-bombing. For those of you looking for an honest review, here you go. This game has taken all aspects of the first game and improved everything. The visuals are more vibrant. Gone are the blind boxes and grinding for coins. More car customizations and options for anyones taste. The AI is programmed to challenge even the most experienced gamers, but can be tamed with enough practice and skill. The devs are constantly looking at the community to see what needs to be improved or patched. Thank you for keeping the HW35/AcceleRacers fandom alive and I will see you all on the track!