Just over a month back, we ran a story on a brand new Hot Wheels arcade racer by Adrenaline Amusements that suddenly had a manual listed on their website folder link. Besides some reports of Dave & Busters locations receiving cabinets and them not being up and running yet (apparently the software wasn’t delivered with them), things then went silent. Fast forward a week and this game is now available to play, with some videos popping up to show us what it’s all about.
As of publishing this post, there is no official confirmation on the title from Adrenaline, essentially leaving its release like a general test. However, with it now beginning operations at Dave & Busters locations across the land, we have cobbled together some brief footage and details from people who’ve already given it a play. Let’s take a closer look at Hot Wheels: Victory Lap.
Hot Wheels: Victory Lap
From the few pieces of Hot Wheels: Victory Lap footage that have made it out (including a new TV commercial for Dave & Busters in which it appears), there are a few details to be gleaned already. First off, you’ll note the subtitle added to the game’s name. That was nowhere to be found on the early manual that showed up and formed the basis of the previous post (although it was pretty bare on specifics regarding the game anyway, looking like a quick copy/paste of the NFS Heat Takedown manual with some modifications).
The subtitle is a bit of a misnomer however, as according to Jdevy (who gave us our first proper glimpse of the game, and detailed it in our Discord server + on the D&B subreddit), it is not a closed-loop racer with selectable courses and laps as such. Instead, the game content consists of several randomized A to B tracks through canyons, valleys and suburbs, and a few selectable Hot Wheels cars – basically making it a reskinned Need For Speed Heat Takedown in both hardware and software.
The few changes made besides the obvious cosmetic ones include swapping out NFS Heat’s cop chase sequences for the signature Hot Wheels loop-de-loops, as well as a monster that the first place winner gets to fly into (which reminded Jdevy of FnF Arcade + Top Gun Maverick). Alongside the loops, there are additionally scripted ramps that change the camera angle up. According to a comment on this second post about it there might be slightly more drifting action than NFS too.
Other than that though, it does pretty much sound like a NFS Heat reskin on the whole. This is a little surprising as the train of thought was previously that it’d be based more on one of the Hot Wheels home games, but instead Adrenaline took a different approach. That part is fine by me, and it does at least look pretty sharp graphically; although like NFS (and also their recent Drakons), free continues are not offered, instead requiring players credit in again whether they win or not. While this design choice is nothing new (games as far back as the likes of Star Wars Battle Pod have been doing it) that is always a controversial feature among arcade game fans. Doubly disappointing is the apparent lack of a high score table, though that isn’t surprising either as Adrenaline’s other recent games haven’t had those too.
Petitions and hashtag campaigns are usually pointless, but I would chant #BringBackLeaderboards over and over if it had a positive result 😛
When Or Will This Get A Wide Release?
The last question is, when or will Hot Wheels: Victory Lap release outside of Dave & Busters (and Main Event, as seen in one of the above videos)? Without a reply to our emails, and it still being absent from Adrenaline’s website (and Amusement Expo), this is not something that we can definitively answer at the moment.
What’s worth noting is how a few cabinets out there have got the D&B logo emblazoned, which is typical for full exclusives of theirs. But then some of the others don’t, and with it also using NFS Heat’s base cabinet, it could be released as a cheaper conversion kit. As Hot Wheels King of the Road is seemingly out of production now too, this might replace it in effect. At the end of the day, until Adrenaline officially confirm anything, it’s anyone’s guess – but for the moment, this appears to be a D&B exclusive that might end up having a longer than normal time for that to play out.
Until then, what do you think of Hot Wheels: Victory Lap? Would you like to see it at an arcade near you?
