Hot Wheels Unleashed: Batman Expansion Impressions — Be the Batcar

As you may already know, we had fun with Hot Wheels Unleashed in our review period. While it’s always a blast to jump back in and race around to your heart’s content, it’s nice to have something new to do. Low and behold, like a signal was in the sky, Batman has arrived, at least, in car form. With a bunch of themed Hot Wheels, customization items for the Basement, and even a new run of tracks, this addition is more than a DC makeover.

Before I jump into all the fun superhero stuff, let me give it up for the Hot Wheels Unleashed menu music. They didn’t have to go this hard, and it absolutely slaps. I’m sitting here writing up these impressions with it playing in the background, and it’s definitely making this all the more enjoyable. Good on ya Milestone.

Back to the Batcave, the tracks you’re going to play on all take place inside it. Like the ones before, these all exist as regular sized Hot Wheels tracks layered around the room. The devs definitely found some cool ways to incorporate the Batcave though, with my favorite the Hangar Tours driving underneath the life sized Batcar. While I can’t say all the tracks are heroes, some are villainously familiar, it’s a fun ride over the five different races available. The other cool thing is how these have been added as events in the City Rumble, so more unlockables are there for the taking.

As for the cars racing into your collection, they’re just too cool. There are five total, with Penguin, Joker, Robin, and Batman represented. That sounds like four, but we’re getting snickered a little bit by two Batman designs. He’s a popular character of course, and both designs are sweet (especially Armored Batman), but it would have been nice if they weren’t doubled up here.

This comes in as a surprise considering you also have the DC Super-Villains Racing Season available, a battle pass-esque smorgasbord of DC content. I know this one is specifically themed, with six vehicles including the likes of Bane and Poison Ivy, but I’d rather have one of their cars in the Batman pack and the additional Batcar as an earnable in this one. Speaking of earnables, there is plenty to go after, with 50 tiers of unlocks, with upgrade and coin tokens, more Basement customization, and of course the aforementioned villainous vehicles.

Where I come to a bit of a standstill is the price. The Batman Expansion will run you $14.99, and the DC Super-Villains Racing Season pass will take $5.99. Neither are horribly priced, but I feel as though the sweet spots are closer to $12.99 and $4.99. I haven’t gotten to play a lot, so it could be easier to earn the seasonal content, not to mention I pay more for Call Of Duty battle passes, but any pass that doesn’t offer the currency to purchase the next one will always be too expensive in my opinion. There’s some fun content here, but it could be just a little cheaper.

Overall, there’s a bunch to like. Beyond my qualms with the pricing, each of the vehicles are a lot of fun and the theming is on point. The real highlight of it all is the Batcave, and while the tracks don’t get too imaginative once you’ve played the first two, racing past all these amazing DC Easter eggs is something anybody will have a blast doing.

David Burdette

Lead Video Game Editor | [email protected]

David Burdette is a gamer/writer/content creator from TN and Lead Editor for Gaming Trend. He loves Playstation, Star Wars, Marvel, and many other fandoms. He also plays way too much Call Of Duty. You can chat with him on Twitter @SplitEnd89.

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