Review of Hotshot Racing

Yesterday I made mention of Hotshot Racing. I decided that while I am trying to get in a better mental state, I would review the game. This game has been my favorite racing game since Gran Tourismo and Gran Tourismo 2 for the Playstation. It is just an arcade-style racing game, yet it has a lot of depth. There eight different characters that each have four cars. That is a total of 32 vehicles, and I feel that each handles differently, which is nice.

There are a few different play styles, with Barrel Barrage and Drive or Explode being my favorites. Barrel Barrage reminds me of Mario Kart, except you are only dropping barrels on the track. If you hit a barrel, you take damage. Once you reach zero health, the game is over. It’s fun and challenging, especially increasing the lap count to the maximum. The other style that I like is Drive or Explode, where every time you cross a checkpoint, the minimum speed you have to maintain is higher. When you drop below that speed, a countdown occurs, if you fail to regain your speed in ten seconds, you explode, and it’s game over. The music for this style cranks up the ambiance because as your minimum speed is raised, the music’s tempo increases. I haven’t tried this style with a larger lap count, and I will probably do that today now that I realized that I haven’t.

Like most games on Steam, there are achievements, which add some additional playability to achieve those. They are basic, and some are quirky as they take some luck and skill to complete. Overall, I find it fun to try different cars to work through the achievements, and it helps with the grind if you care about having other customizations. There is also an online mode that I have yet to try.

As far as how I play it, I exclusively use a controller. I started out using the Logitech F310, which I already owned. It is a great controller for the price and works well with Linux. I just recently purchased a PlayStation 4 Dual Shock controller, which adds depth to the game because of the rumble. Lastly, I am, of course, running this on Linux, openSUSE Tumbleweed, to be exact. This game is a gold-rated game on ProtonDB, and it does work great with Proton. I haven’t experienced one issue with it at all. I am running it on a 34in ultra-wide at 3440x1440 resolution, and it doesn’t even make my AMD 5500 XT break a sweat. I would speculate that it will run well on Intel graphics, and I may give it a try on my Intel NUC to see how it handles it.

If I were to give this a star rating, it would be five stars. It is a great game, and I have found it relaxing to play.

Thanks for reading,

Jamie

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