With more and more racing games looking more and more realistic, it’s hard to see where one can move the needle in the genre. Hot Lap Racing for the Nintendo Switch and PC is a title that looks to buck that trend, focusing on fun tracks and cars and not taking itself too seriously.
First things first, racing games are my thing. I play a staggering amount of Gran Turismo 7 and F1 24 (at the moment, anyways, until F1 25 comes out next year), so when the opportunity to look at Hot Lap Racing came along, I decided to take it on to see what an arcade-style racing game is like in 2024.
Hot Lap Racing allows you to start your driver career with either the Tutorial & Championship training or the Bernier Challenge to achieve your initial racing licence. I chose to do the Tutorial & Championship because it gave me a better opportunity to learn the controls and how the cars handle.
One of the things that makes racing games so much fun is controlling the vehicle. If a car isn’t responsive or feels too loose, then things can become less fun and more like you’re fighting the car for control. This was the case for a lot of the tutorial. I spent way too long trying to wrestle the car into submission because it would slide. A lot. All the time. At first, I thought I was just being too aggressive on the throttle, but even when I let off and tried to finesse my way around a corner, the car would either slide or I’d get a lot of understeer, forcing me to over-correct and slide some more.
“Visually, Hot Lap Racing reminded me of those old Cruisin’ USA games you’d see at your local arcade.”
Once I completed the tutorial and championship, I was able to start my career properly. The career takes approximately 9-11 hours, depending on your skill level behind the wheel, and takes you through multiple championships, driving a series of different cars against AI opponents. I had no idea the warzone that awaited me as I took on the first few events.
The thing about the AI in Hot Lap Racing is that it really doesn’t care about you on the track. Almost as if you weren’t even there, I was getting collision after collision, forcing me to the back of so many grids that I wondered if I was playing Wreckfest. Getting out front and staying there is the name of the game, which seems like it would be an obvious statement, but in Hot Lap Racing, battling through traffic as you work your way up to the lead is not a viable long-term strategy.
Other than Career, there are a couple of other interesting game modes, like Hot Lap. This is exactly what it sounds like, and it has you taking a car out onto a track and trying to set it as fast a time as you can with no one else on the track. Do this to your heart’s content, and you can see your times improve until you master each track.
Speaking of tracks, there are over 15 different tracks to race on, offering over 70 different layouts! There is a mixture of Licensed and Custom tracks, like the Salzburgring in Austria, Oschersleben in Germany, and more. My favourite part of racing is learning tracks, especially with real-life tracks, so this is a fun experience on some tracks I was completely unfamiliar with.
Hot Lap Racing doesn’t have a massive car library to choose from, with its selection being just over 50 cars, but there is a brilliant mixture of Formula-style cars from the 1960s, to real-life vehicles like the Peugeot 9×8, Alpine A110 GT4, Alfa Romeo 155 DTM, and more. There is something for everyone to like in the vehicle library, despite its smaller size.
Multiplayer in Hot Lap Racing is available on both the 4-player split screen and the 12-player online. It’s pretty simple stuff, really, as you select your car and your track and whether you want to do a qualifying lap, and you’re ready to go. This is really the most plug-and-play feature in the game and is a good way to get your mates over to have some fun racing.
“Getting out front and staying there is the name of the game, which seems like it would be an obvious statement, but in Hot Lap Racing, battling through traffic as you work your way up to the lead is not a viable long-term strategy.”
There is a little bit of customization when it comes to your driver and the avatar, which you can see when the grid’s starting order is shown. There are some preset options but nothing more, and you cannot create your own designs. It’s a bit of a downer there, but it’s an arcade-style game, so there’s nothing to complain about.
When it comes to the actual controls when driving, it’s pretty standard fare. You use the ZL and ZR buttons on your Switch controller to brake and accelerate, respectively, and the joystick to steer. If you’re feeling really ambitious, you can use the A&B buttons to shift gears up and down, but I’ve never had any success doing that.
I highly recommend using a Pro controller on Switch when playing Hot Lap Racing. The digital shoulder buttons on the JoyCons are not the easiest to control, and the same goes for the Joystick on the JoyCons. Its limited motion range doesn’t give you the most control over the vehicle, resulting in over-correction and perpendicular meetings with the wall.
Visually, Hot Lap Racing reminded me of those old Cruisin’ USA games you’d see at your local arcade. True-to-life graphics are not the name of the game here, and they don’t need to be. I did experience a few frame jumps and slowdowns, but nothing major enough to become a detriment to the gameplay itself.
Overall, Hot Lap Racing is a fine arcade-style racing game when you know that’s what it is. It does suffer from a distinct lack of things to do once you complete the career, however, and replayability is king in a game like this. I can still tentatively recommend Hot Lap Racing, but, for me, it’s not the type of game I am excited to get home and play after a long day of work.
