Each time a game makes a claim that it is going to make me relive the classic moments of arcade racing in the 90’s, I take a tablespoon of salt, because there have been a lot of those claims and none have truly live up to the potential, so the question is, can Hotshot Racing achieve where others have failed?

The answer is it seems so, after spending a few hours with the game, I have some fairly high hope foe the finished product, but there are a number of roadblocks that need to be cleared up first. Let’s start with the main thing, the racing, because if they didn’t get this right, then nothing else would have mattered and for the most part it is solid and fun. While initially created by Lucky Mountain Games, the studio got some extra development support from Sumo Digital, which I think has helped greatly, as Sumo know racing games, being the creators behind the Sonic racing games. Once you are ready to go, you need to select your driver and that actually has a strategy for it, as the one you pick will determine the cars you have available to you, each car has groups for speed, acceleration and drift, finding the one that suits your style is key, if your car takes off to slow, you might never catch up. Of course, there are difficulty levels, which act like the cc’s in Mario Kart and while they are challenging, if you start out in the easier ones and work your way up, they won’t be that intense.

Racing is fairly straightforward as the tracks have no shortcuts, or at least none that I was able to spot and while you can drift, it is actually a bad idea, so hitting the gas and then letting go, to corner better, is all you really need to do. The tracks brought back a lot of memories of old games, like Daytona, which is something I am sure they were aiming for, given it is part of their message when they talk about the game, but it is one thing to talk about it and something else to actually get there. Some of the modes were not available to me in the build I had, so there is still more for me to enjoy such as the Cops N Robbers mode, that one I am quite keen to try out. The game also offers multiplayer, but I was not able to give that a spin, given the nature of playing games that are not released yet, I am looking forward to game nights, when I can convince people to play some four player couch co-op, but that is still a while a way.

Of course, the game is still in development, there were quite the number if bugs that I found, but none of them were game breaking, just things like sounds not lining up. With that said, there were some things that need to be addressed, the most crucial is that right now the AI balance needs to be fixed as they are brutal. Getting into first position is not that challenging, as long as you get a good start, to many revs and you can burnout on the start line, but once you are in first, your job is not to stay in the lead, it is to stay on the track, because each time they want to try and pass, they have to bash into you to do it. If this were the normal bumping in from behind it would not be an issue, but more often than not, they attempt a pitting manoeuvre, something that the Police do when in a high-speed pursuit. The outcome of this is that the car tends to want to spin out, which is also something it does if you drift to hard, the frustration though is crazy.

Another thing that needs to be address, though this is a minor one, is the speech from the different racers, being passed, drafting another racer, or just to fill in silence, they like to speak. The problem is most of what they have to say is ear piercing, one of the racers is meant to be English and they went with someone that likes to claim how great they are, or at least their dad can help them there. No matter the character, they all that same flaw, they sound like the most whiny version of a country’s stereotype and it ain’t good, while you can lower the volume, I feel that they should just replace the lines with less cringe inducing ones.

Hotshot Racing is on track to be a true champion of the 90’s arcade racer, as long as they can fix up the AI issue, there are also changes to the tracks I would love to see, some shortcuts being added, or if they are there, being made a little more obvious would be great. There is no set date yet, but the last update was that they were aiming for an Autumn release, just a matter of seeing if hits the finish line one time, or goes around for one more lap.