Hot Lap League: Deluxe Edition

Genre: Arcade Racing

Players: 1, Online Leaderboards

.

Review:

Hot Lap League is an Arcade-style Racing game released on PC, mobile devices, and Nintendo Switch in 2022. This game has players tackling 150+ crazy twisting, looping, gravity-defying tracks (think “Hot Wheels playset”, but without the plastic), all with the goal of trying to shave off every millisecond of your time to try to get an ideal run to the finish line.

Before going on, I should note that even though Hot Lap League is, at its core, a single-player only game, this game requires an online connection through Nintendo Switch Online. While i know there are some who will immediately give a “hard pass” to an online-only single-player game (especially on a handheld system like Switch), know that there is a reason for this – the core gameplay of this game is all about challenging leaderboard times from other players around the world (including via cross-play), emphasizing this by having players constantly racing against ghost recordings of other racers close to their skill level. Without an online connection, this would be a very different game.

When it comes to the presentation, Racing games are naturally a genre where you really want to emphasize speed, smooth framerates, and clean resolutions, and Hot Lap League thankfully delivers in all three of these areas, with the game running at a mostly-stable 60FPS with a 1080p resolution in docked mode (not quite sure what the resolution in portable mode is, but I’m going to guess this hits the max of 720p). There’s an excellent sense of speed here too, and things can feel particularly crazy when you’re looping and corkscrewing around the game’s crazier tracks at these high speeds.

Hot Lap League looks quite nice beyond the speed and clarity of the game, too. There are some nice environmental textures, some good detail in the backgrounds, and while each track takes a few seconds to load, restarting a run is instantaneous with the press of a single button, making it all the easier to repeat a run until you get it juuuuust right. My one issue with the visuals is that by having the player always racing on tracks suspended in mid-air, the tracks can look somewhat samey, even when the game changes up the backgrounds.

And of course, the game is presented with some good car sounds, and a nice techno-style synthesized soundtrack that does a good job keeping the blood pumping while you’re racing at high speeds.

The controls and gameplay of Hot Lap League are simple – players can opt to use either the analog stick or gyroscopic motion control to steer, and beyond that you have your accelerator button (auto-enabled by default, though you can shut it off if you like), a power slide button, and a restart button, and that’s it. The controls are responsive and easy to get the hang of, which is good because you’ll need to make the best of those controls to get better times. While this game is absolutely not a realistic racing game, it is above all else a “pure” racing game, with no tricks or gimmicks beyond the crazy courses themselves.

In the game’s menus, players will complete daily tasks to earn in-game currency to unlock cosmetic enhancements for your vehicles (all vehicles control exactly the same). This has the distinct appearance of being a vestigial remnant of ugly monetization, but microtransactions are nowhere to be found here.

Unfortunately, there are other things you won’t find here either. As mentioned above, there’s no actual multiplayer mode in this game. What’s more, unlike the comparable Trackmania franchise, there’s no course creator here either.

What you will find here is a $20 price tag… for a game that sells on mobile devices for $5 and on PC for $15. To be fair, this game does include bonus cosmetic enhancements, and it does regularly go on sale for as low as $2, but I don’t feel this excuses this game’s absurdly high regular price, given the lack of features included here.

Make no mistake, what Hot Lap League does, it does very, very well – no-nonsense high-speed Arcade-style Racing on insane tracks that is going to be an outstanding game for Racing game perfectionists who live for finding the best way to make the perfect run. Unfortunately, while this game hits its niche very well, it stumbles outside of that niche, with its online requirement, lack of multiplayer and lack of a track builder, all for a price that’s four times what the game costs on mobile devices. Unless you are the sort of person who this game was designed to speak to, you’re better off either getting the mobile version of the game, or picking up a game like Burnout Paradise Remastered, Asphalt 9: Legends, or Hot Wheels Unleashed.

tl;dr – Hot Lap League is an Arcade-style Racing game where players race on crazy twisting, looping, gravity-defying tracks while trying to shave every millisecond you can off of your time. This game looks and sounds fantastic, but it’s overpriced compared to other versions, and lacking multiple features you’d expect from this sort of game. Case in point: This is essentially a single-player only game that you need to be online to play. Now, while this game may have some reason to force that requirement on players, all of the compromises and limitations will be enough to drive most players away to a version of this game on another platform, or to one of multiple other better options for Arcade-style Racing games on Nintendo Switch.

Grade: B-

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Ben, Andy Miller, Exlene, Homer Simpin, Johannes, Francis Obst, Gabriel Coronado-Medina, Ilya Zverev, Jared Wark, Kristoffer Wulff, and Seth Christenfeld. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}