Hot Lap Racing Review – Driving Back to Basics

Hot Lap Racing Review

Great racing games for the Nintendo Switch are few and far between. There’s Mario Kart (of course) and a handful of others, like a watered-down GRID spinoff and a Need For Speed remaster. Hot Lap Racing would like to be the next great Switch racing game. Unfortunately, I played it on PC, where it gets absolutely demolished by other games in the genre.

On the continuum of arcade racer to painstaking simulation, Hot Lap Racing is firmly in the arcade tradition. There’s no damage modeling, and dialing in the driving options is a matter of picking manual or auto transmission and overall difficulty. Forget painting your car, though you can choose between a few pre-fab liveries. Compared to the heavy hitters like Forza Motorsport, F1 2023, and too many others to mention, Hot Lap Racing is pared down to the basics.

Continental Drift

All racing games have a few elements in common: a selection of cars, tracks, and a handful — at least — of gameplay modes. The premiere games in the genre offer hyper-detailed, licensed cars and photorealistic tracks and courses. Even when the driving assists are set to max, the racing experience is thrilling and immersive.

Hot Lap Racing follows suit in covering the basics. The game’s 50+ cars are nearly all from continental European manufacturers like Peugeot, Alfa Romeo, Renault, and Lola. Many are licensed, and others are “inspired by” creations that racing fans will recognize. The hook in Hot Lap Racing is that it features both historical and modern cars in a range of types, from single seaters to electric vehicles to production cars straight off the line. In multiplayer races and the game’s custom race modes, it’s possible to mix and match cars from different eras. Especially for Switch fans, the garage covers a lot of ground.

During the game’s career and single-race modes, players compete against named drivers from different racing circuits, represented by photos. I seriously doubt that this is anything but cosmetic, however. Like the cars, the tracks and courses are largely European, though most are pretty recognizable landmarks of motorsport.

Career-Ending Moves

Hot Lap Racing has a career mode, which forces the player through an annoying series of mini-game tutorials before even getting to actual races. The purpose of the career mode is to unlock all the different cars from various eras of racing. Honestly, the career mode feels essentially skippable, since most of the cars are available in custom races anyway. The text-based Career mode’s narrative isn’t what we’ve come to expect from other racing games.

In addition to the Career mode, players can compete against their own best time in the Hot Lap mode. The custom race mode allows drivers to choose their cars, tracks, and number of laps. There are several multiplayer modes as well. Most of the fun I had with Hot Lap Racing was setting up custom races and playing with the historical range of cars.

Of course, whether a sim or arcade racer, driving has to feel good. While some racing games figure in elements like temperature, tire inflation and a hundred tweakable mechanical elements, Hot Lap Racing doesn’t fuss with any of these. I’d say car handling is on a continuum of sluggish to squirrely, and it was hard to predict just where each car would land. There’s no haptic feedback. Generally, driving feels about the same as it did in much earlier, less refined games.

Who Needs Real?

Playing Hot Lap Racing on PC doesn’t do the game any favors. The lack of reflections, weather, modeled shadows, damage effects, and detailed textures makes it look generations behind the leaders. The developers make a big deal out of the switchable camera views. Maybe this is a novelty on the Switch. It certainly is a staple of every PC racing game.

Riding shotgun with Hot Lap Racing’s bland visuals are its audio design and music. There’s relatively little difference between the engine sounds of different cars, and none of them have the dynamic range and impact one expects from those powerful motors. The game’s generic-rock soundtrack is entirely superfluous.

To be charitable, a case could be made for Hot Lap Racing on PC as a throwback to simpler games. You certainly don’t need an automotive engineering degree to understand and play it. If all you want is a simple racer to jump into and play, you’re covered.

Especially on the Nintendo Switch, Hot Lap Racing definitely fills a neglected niche. The selection of cars, tracks, and modes is certainly adequate, especially for fans of Euro-centric motorsport. On PC, though, it’s hard not to compare Hot Lap Racing to the scores of better and more refined games already parked in the garage.

***PC code provided by the publisher for review***