Hotshot racing, Sumo Digital next masterpiece! (out now, day one on Game Pass for Console)

[Metalmucil]

Having fun with it, looks awesome, enjoying the handling model quite a bit. But, as some have stated, yeah, some of the tracks are just too wide and flat. Other than that, totally happy with my purchase so far, especially since we know more free tracks are coming.

 

[nikos]

Does this support HFR? Would like 120fps.

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Nope! :/ 60hz only.

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Aw, what!? I was super excited to break in my new 144hz monitor with this game. Bummer.

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Not sure if that's necessarily true.

V-Sync + Borderless Windowed mode will run the game at your monitor's refresh rate.
V-Sync + Fullscreen will lock the game to 60 FPS.
V-Sync off will unlock the framerate completely.

I believe V-Sync + Borderless currently provides the smoothest experience.

 

[Deleted member 79451]

Not sure if that's necessarily true.

V-Sync + Borderless Windowed mode will run the game at your monitor's refresh rate.
V-Sync + Fullscreen will lock the game to 60 FPS.
V-Sync off will unlock the framerate completely.

I believe V-Sync + Borderless currently provides the smoothest experience.

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The framerate does not unlock. You can have whatever refresh rate but the framerate - i.e. how often the game updates doesn't go above 60 per second.

 

[TechMetalRules]

I decided to get Gamepass for a month to try out a bunch of games I never got around to buying, and this showing up today was a pleasent surprise!

I just played through the four normal GP modes and it was pretty fun! The AI's a bit whack, but I thought the handling and sense of speed was pretty good. I really like all the car customization and unlockables as an incentive to keep playing (I love how the cars are all stylized versions of real cars). It's a simple thing, but I also appreciate how each character has their own personality, dialogue and ending.

Seeing as this runs around 60fps on Switch, I added it to my wishlist and will definitely pick it up down the road!

 

[Jaded Alyx]

HD Rumble feels pretty good here once you pay attention to it.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

My Switch got really warm playing this docked. I don't think I've ever felt it this warm before.

 

[Beer Monkey]

Not sure if that's necessarily true.

V-Sync + Borderless Windowed mode will run the game at your monitor's refresh rate.
V-Sync + Fullscreen will lock the game to 60 FPS.
V-Sync off will unlock the framerate completely.

I believe V-Sync + Borderless currently provides the smoothest experience.

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I think this game is crying for 120hz on a low blur display (CRT or strobing LCD are the real options for now). I will wait for more details and just play on X1 via Game Pass until we know more.

 

[5pectre]

I have a Xbox One X and played this game via Game Pass. I think it's a fantastic game. The drifting feels good and so does the handling. I completed the 4 Grand Prix on both Normal and Hard and it feels like, to me, that the game was definitely ment to be played on hard.

On normal it's so slow that you hardly have to drift anywhere except hairpins, so you're going to have a hard time building boost. Also, I see a lot of reviewers bitching about rubber banding. I'm not saying it's not there, because it is, but it's not really that crazy. The reason the AI cars are all over you is because of the super over powered slipstreaming. It is insane. You can slipstream a car that 10 car lengths away and it is AS POWERFUL as using a boost. If a car infront of you use a boost and you slipstream you don't lose any ground.

And to those who seek a real challenge, do everything on expert. And try to beat the staff ghosts in Time Trial. That stuff is tough. I came to the conclusion that not all cars can make it on Expert in the Grand Prix. You need that speed stat.

Oh and the loading times are phenomenal. I counted 5 seconds between races!

 

[dock]

Excited to try this! The flat tracks sound like Scud Race, aka the most boring Sega racer. Hopefully they'll introduce something to mix it up.

Strange that this is not on Game Pass PC. This was also true of Golf With Friends. I wonder if they're planning to make use of steamworks for user created content.

 

[nikos]

The framerate does not unlock. You can have whatever refresh rate but the framerate - i.e. how often the game updates doesn't go above 60 per second.

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Interesting, I was going off of the Steam FPS counter. I knew something didn't feel quite right, but it's still smooth.

Interesting

My Switch got really warm playing this docked. I don't think I've ever felt it this warm before.

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Can you tell if it's running at 720p handheld/1080p docked on the Switch? Any frame pacing issues? Think I'm going to double dip. Really wish more games had cross-platform progression.

 

[Betamaxbandit]

On normal it's so slow that you hardly have to drift anywhere except hairpins, so you're going to have a hard time building boost.

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So harder difficulty, means faster cars? I've been racing on normal and switching cars and didn't notice too much of a difference between them.

The only thing that bothers me is the AI. They are far too aggressive. They seem to be able to bash you off course with ease but you can't rough house them back

 

[MDSVeritas]

Really enjoyed just playing around with it today after downloading it from GamePass. The drifting feels really satisfying, boosting feels suitably fast, and I've enjoyed playing some online games, Cops and Robbers is a lotta fun.

With that said, after the first couple games I had some issues where I'd be in a lobby and there'd be like one person missing or not ready'd up, and hitting B to exit out of the lobby didn't work.

 

[Deleted member 7948]

So harder difficulty, means faster cars? I've been racing on normal and switching cars and didn't notice too much of a difference between them.

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Yup, game really shines on expert.

 

[WhiteNovember]

Well... I had luck here, I guess.

 

[Zaubrer]

The rubberbanding is strong in this one unfortunately. Besides that, great fun! Especially in Split Screen

 

[JohnDusk]

I just wish it looked more like Daytona or the original Ridge Racer. Not that I dislike the Virtua Racing look but Virtua Racing and Horizon Chase have scratched that itch already for me.

 

[PhantomFFR]

After about an hour on PC (video of my experience), I have to say... it lacks polish. Quite a bit. It started off quite badly, more or less crashing my PC when Alt-Tabbing, after changing the graphics settings. Wonderful start! Then the already mentioned lack of button configuration, that (for me) makes MT regrettably no option. I'm not willing to tie a knot in my fingers. Also the lack of KM/H and being forced to look at MPH, that make only minor sense to me is... an odd oversight.

And as has been mentioned, the balancing of the difficulties is odd as well, I had high hopes such odd jumps between difficulties would have died out with Guitar Hero, but alas... there's two levels that pose little challenge and one that is way too hard. Great! At least time trials is quite fun, once I got used to the way drifting works (as in: I have to decide before the corner and can't really correct my line through a corner without having wonderful understeer into the barrier). The constantly repeating comments of the drivers are... slightly annoying already.

Personally I think there's too many cars and the way they are sorted is... not ideal in many ways. Makes it quite hard to find the car I'd like to drive/feel comfortable with. I wish they were stylistically grouped together with a specific driver, but that grouping seems a bit random and more an optical (as in cars that resembles cars of the drivers origin country).

The tracks themselves, as far as I have seen them so far? They seem okay.

 

[Mr.Branding]

Want to cop this so bad given it's on 'sale' atm on the eshop but the aggresive rubber banding and other quirks keep me from getting it right now. I'll wait for a sale later, when they will probably fix some of the balance issues.

 

[Justice_DP]

is there any way to re-assign buttons? I want to play with manual transmission, however it is impossible for me to use my index fingers to shift and my middle-fingers to accelerate and break. Who is responsible for this ....

 

[krat0zs]

I have a Xbox One X and played this game via Game Pass. I think it's a fantastic game. The drifting feels good and so does the handling. I completed the 4 Grand Prix on both Normal and Hard and it feels like, to me, that the game was definitely ment to be played on hard.

On normal it's so slow that you hardly have to drift anywhere except hairpins, so you're going to have a hard time building boost. Also, I see a lot of reviewers bitching about rubber banding. I'm not saying it's not there, because it is, but it's not really that crazy. The reason the AI cars are all over you is because of the super over powered slipstreaming. It is insane. You can slipstream a car that 10 car lengths away and it is AS POWERFUL as using a boost. If a car infront of you use a boost and you slipstream you don't lose any ground.

And to those who seek a real challenge, do everything on expert. And try to beat the staff ghosts in Time Trial. That stuff is tough. I came to the conclusion that not all cars can make it on Expert in the Grand Prix. You need that speed stat.

Oh and the loading times are phenomenal. I counted 5 seconds between races!

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How many hours of gameplay would it be to do all the single player content with it in expert mode

 

[japtor]

Can you tell if it's running at 720p handheld/1080p docked on the Switch? Any frame pacing issues? Think I'm going to double dip. Really wish more games had cross-platform progression.

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Not sure on resolutions, but definitely not perfect 60fps. With all the cars on and tire smoke and stuff it's definitely dropping. Wouldn't say horrible but noticeable. My bigger issue is straight up pauses. I forget if I've seen it in a race but on time trials it does something after some (but not all!) laps where it pauses for what feels like a few seconds. Really annoying cause that's been my favorite mode so far.

 

[5pectre]

How many hours of gameplay would it be to do all the single player content with it in expert mode

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This will be a huge guestimate from my side as I've only played Normal and Hard but here's the breakdown.
There's 4 grand prix with 4 races in each. A grand prix is about 15 minutes. So all 4 is an hour. BUT you're talking Expert which is quite challenging, so not everything will be 1st try, atleast for me, as it was for the other difficulties. Could image it would take 3-4 hours to do all Grand Prix on Expert.
So that's 4 hours but there's achievements connected to this mode. Every driver has 4 cars. You need to win a Grand Prix with each car for each driver to unlock a customization option and achievements. So that's 40 Grand Prix and keeping in mind that you get better as you play I'd say that this grind is around 30 hours.

On top of that there's single race where you can pick Arcade, Cops and Robbers and Chase the Bomb or whatever its called. I've only tried Arcade Mode, and there's achievements connected to all of these, but you choose a track and a car and go. So that's 16 races on Expert, so 3-4 hours just like Grand Prix. On top of that you can play in mirror mode too here so that's another 3-4 hours. Don't know about Cops and Robbers or Chase the Bomb as I haven't tried those but I could imagine it's also all tracks and mirrored. No idea wow difficult it is? add an extra 10 hours?
So we're up to 30 hours for the Grand Prix + 18 hours for this single race stuff = 48 hours.

Finally there's Time Trial. There's a staff ghost to beat on each track. I also think this has mirror mode. I only tried the first track and after 10 laps I was still 1.5 seconds behind. This could take quite a while. 30 minutes per staff ghost on average times 32 tracks = 16 hours.

So a combined 60-70 hours to unlock everything on Expert?

 

[Hwoar]

The drifting in this feels really good, almost like Outrun 2

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Anyone else agree with this? I came to this thread wondering if the drifting feels like Outrun 2.

 

[Fortinbras]

Tried the game yesterday and got Gold on all Expert GPs which automatically awards you the Gold trophy for the lower difficulties.

Can't say I'm a fan. Driving feels ok, the track layouts are a bit boring and the AI is just annoying. It's not necessarily the rubber banding that annoys me so much but the fact that the AI drivers are driving like they're drunk.

Only paid 16 Euros on Xbox but honestly I don't think it's worth it.

 

[ghostcrew]

Anyone else agree with this? I came to this thread wondering if the drifting feels like Outrun 2.

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Kinda. I'd lean more towards Ridge Racer probably but I need to play more. I've only done a couple of races!

You're definitely tapping break to start a big drift on every big corner. Like Outrun 2/Ridge Racer, the drifting is the core mechanic.

 

[MysticGon]

I'm afraid to get it on the Switch because of the joysticks. I might just settle for the PS4 version.

Edit: forgot about analog triggers. Definitely PS4 then.

 

[DaCocoBrova]

I don't see this on Gamepass PC. Not available in the US?

 

[Hwoar]

Kinda. I'd lean more towards Ridge Racer probably but I need to play more. I've only done a couple of races!

You're definitely tapping break to start a big drift on every big corner. Like Outrun 2/Ridge Racer, the drifting is the core mechanic.

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From watching videos it does look more like Ridge Racer with maybe a little bit of Outrun2.

Anyways there is nothing wrong with RR drifting, but I still have my doubts if I'd like this game.

(I do realize that the only way to really know if the drifting clicks is just to play it.)

I don't see this on Gamepass PC. Not available in the US?

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It's not on gamepass PC in general.

 

[E.Balboa]

Just gonna repost what I said on the arcade racers thread

..
Was excited about Hotshots, unfortunately it feels as flat as its visuals.

I love the visual style, but the music is terrible, sense of speed is lacking in every camera angle except bonnet, drifting feels awkward (maybe it's me? probably), tracks are way way waaaaay wide, rubber banding is off the charts and winning is a matter of saving a couple of nitros for the last straight and firing it up, since you are always at striking distance (at least for the first 2 classes).
..

I will come back to try it on the highest difficulty class tho since that's what most people is recommending.

 

[desmondcs]

I've played 3/4 of the Grand Prix circuits. Going through 'Hotshot!' in a few & overall I'm having fun. I agree with the what everybody is saying about the rubber banding and not being able to totally take a lead, but I'll give it a go on some of the other difficulties a little later & see if that does the trick somehow. I must be really out of the loop with arcade racers or didn't play enough because getting used to the drifting has had a little bit of a learning curve for me. Maybe I expected to go into the game Mario Kart style or something? At any rate, once I get into the groove of it, it clicks with me. I've mainly been using Marcus and testing out a few of his different cars because I try to pick a Black dude whenever a game gives me the chance. I can see this being fun to play with someone so, I'll probably get my wife to play or see if I can race with a friend online. I'm hoping they add wheel support at some point too. It's optional, but I've got a Hori Pro Deluxe racing wheel that I'd like to get more use out of.

 

[IronicSonic]

Playing with the Carbon car improves a lot my experience at least. Drifting is more intuitive and I had better sense of speed. I can see why rubberbanding is as it is because the recoil/slipstream mechanic is pretty OP. Even without using boost you can easily win at least in normal if you use it right (I have 3 gold cup, and I'll try HotShot GP later).

I still feel the handling is not quite there to feeling "great" (I can't see the actual model working on a U turn for example) but I'm enjoying the game quite a bit now. I think enemy AI could use some aggressiveness downgrade though

 

[Jaded Alyx]

They need to reduce the boost received when slipstreaming, and/or reduce the distance at which it becomes active, and/or increase how long you have to be aligned behind a car before it becomes active.

 

[DaveLong]

It has Eurojank. It's ok. It is not as special as you'll want it to be.

 

[nded]

I like the driving but the game needs something. Hopefully the DLC tracks play with elevation more.

 

[silver1289s]

Gotta say that I love the handling and drifting in this game. It's exactly what I was looking for. My complaints boil down to wanting more tracks, scaling back the aggressiveness of the AI and making the Switch version crossplay. Since launch, I have only been able to find one online match. I've also found some weird performance issues every now and then when docked and co-op can really put a strain on fps. Overall, I'm pretty satisified with it and am pretty excited for the DLC. I think it has the potential to be quite good if the devs keep supporting it.

Oh yeah, one last thing. I'm not really for sure how I feel about the rubber banding. On one hand, it really keeps the ferocity upped for the races, but it can also be kinda annoying when you aren't making mistakes and are driving well.

 

[silver1289s]

I've played 3/4 of the Grand Prix circuits. Going through 'Hotshot!' in a few & overall I'm having fun. I agree with the what everybody is saying about the rubber banding and not being able to totally take a lead, but I'll give it a go on some of the other difficulties a little later & see if that does the trick somehow. I must be really out of the loop with arcade racers or didn't play enough because getting used to the drifting has had a little bit of a learning curve for me. Maybe I expected to go into the game Mario Kart style or something? At any rate, once I get into the groove of it, it clicks with me. I've mainly been using Marcus and testing out a few of his different cars because I try to pick a Black dude whenever a game gives me the chance. I can see this being fun to play with someone so, I'll probably get my wife to play or see if I can race with a friend online. I'm hoping they add wheel support at some point too. It's optional, but I've got a Hori Pro Deluxe racing wheel that I'd like to get more use out of.

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It took a minute for the drifting to click with me. I can also confirm that it is quite fun to play with a significant other. My girlfriend has been struggling, but she seems to really enjoy it no matter her placing. I think it's easily one of the best co-op racers on the Switch outside of Mario Kart.

 

[Deleted member 7572]

Anyone want to play a few races? Having a hard time getting 4 people in a lobby.

SW-2701-5566-8216

 

[Kareha]

Have they said if this is coming to PC Game Pass?

 

[japtor]

I'm afraid to get it on the Switch because of the joysticks. I might just settle for the PS4 version.

Edit: forgot about analog triggers. Definitely PS4 then.

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Somehow I doubt analog triggers matter in this game.

Just gonna repost what I said on the arcade racers thread

..
Was excited about Hotshots, unfortunately it feels as flat as its visuals.

I love the visual style, but the music is terrible, sense of speed is lacking in every camera angle except bonnet, drifting feels awkward (maybe it's me? probably), tracks are way way waaaaay wide, rubber banding is off the charts and winning is a matter of saving a couple of nitros for the last straight and firing it up, since you are always at striking distance (at least for the first 2 classes).
..

I will come back to try it on the highest difficulty class tho since that's what most people is recommending.

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Try time trials. The racing (with AI at least) is ehhh but I had a good time with time trials. You can focus on the driving/drifting and just go at it, you get full boosts at the start line so it becomes a matter of using them whenever possible and building them back up with drifting and just getting a sense of how to balance boosting/drifting and maximize the use.

As far as the drfiting itself, I think it varies a decent amount depending on the car, although for time trials you probably want to stick with the speed ones. It'd be nice to have different time trial leaderboards for each car.

Playing with the Carbon car improves a lot my experience at least. Drifting is more intuitive and I had better sense of speed. I can see why rubberbanding is as it is because the recoil/slipstream mechanic is pretty OP. Even without using boost you can easily win at least in normal if you use it right (I have 3 gold cup, and I'll try HotShot GP later).

I still feel the handling is not quite there to feeling "great" (I can't see the actual model working on a U turn for example) but I'm enjoying the game quite a bit now. I think enemy AI could use some aggressiveness downgrade though

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It feels like tighter late in a drift is harder than it should be, but it does seem doable. Partially depends on the car but it also seemed to respond to nuanced turn input during a drift more than I expected.

 

[nikos]

Anyone want to play a few races? Having a hard time getting 4 people in a lobby.

SW-2701-5566-8216

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Is it hard to find online games on the Switch version? Steam seems to be hit or miss.

From what I was told, lobbies will only show up if they're in the waiting room, not while races are running. Hopefully that's fixed, if true.

 

[MaverickHunterAsh]

I'm very interested in picking this up and very likely will thanks to the wonderful combination of '90s low-poly SEGA-style arcade visuals and Ridge Racer drifting mechanics I keep reading about, but frustratingly, none of the reviews I've perused have even touched on the soundtrack. I hate it when game critics ignore a game's music. 😤

That's one of the most important parts of any arcade racer of course, so can anyone here tell me if the soundtrack delivers in the same retro-inspired way the visuals do? Or just delivers in general? Thanks in advance!

 

[IronicSonic]

I'm very interested in picking this up and very likely will thanks to the wonderful combination of '90s low-poly SEGA-style arcade visuals and Ridge Racer drifting mechanics I keep reading about, but frustratingly, none of the reviews I've perused have even touched on the soundtrack. I hate it when game critics ignore a game's music. 😤

That's one of the most important parts of any arcade racer of course, so can anyone here tell me if the soundtrack delivers in the same retro-inspired way the visuals do? Or just delivers in general? Thanks in advance!

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It's nothing special. Electronic music without much substance and all tracks are very similar. But I must say. I don't like Ridge Racer music at all

 

[Bigg]

Anyone getting performance issues on PC? I have a 1070 and a 2nd Gen Ryzen 5 and I was getting a lot of sub-60 fps in the third course of the first GP (the jungle one) on high settings. This doesn't seem like it should be a technically intensive game considering the aesthetic, and I don't understand how I can get 120 fps on high just fine on THPS 1+2 but the same system struggles with a game that intentionally looks like it was made in 1993.

Also, I like the music! Definitely evocative of Daytona/Ridge Racer.

 

[Deleted member 7572]

Is it hard to find online games on the Switch version? Steam seems to be hit or miss.

From what I was told, lobbies will only show up if they're in the waiting room, not while races are running. Hopefully that's fixed, if true.

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It's hit or miss as well. I had a few races that filled up and then nothing past like 11pm for about the 20 minutes I kept a public lobby open.

 

[silver1289s]

Is it hard to find online games on the Switch version? Steam seems to be hit or miss.

From what I was told, lobbies will only show up if they're in the waiting room, not while races are running. Hopefully that's fixed, if true.

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I can't seem to find anyone to race with playing online. Really hoping something is done about the matchmaking. Crossplay would be a huge help imo.

 

[jesu]

Does everyone in the lobby have to press ready for an online race to start?
Because I'm getting into lobbies with 7 other people but the race never starts.

 

[Malverde]

Yeah the online being DOA was such a huge fucking bummer. Tried multiple times yesterday and got nothing. Gameplay modes advertised seemed reminiscent of Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, such a damn shame I was not even able to try it. My brother and I played through all four grand prix's yesterday, so I pretty much feel done with the game. At this point even if they do get around to adding cross play most people will have moved on. Sumo really screwed the pooch with this one. Feels like a waste of $16. :(

 

[CrypticSlayer]

Ran some custom races with friends. It's a ton of fun.

 

[eso76]

The game looks SO good on One X (not even sure it's enhanced).
So aesthetically appealing.

Not a fan of the weird motion blur and special effects when you slipstream/use nitro, though: those look out of place.

plays fine too but yeah, rubberbanding is off the charts

 

[b00_thegh0st]

Does manual shifting provide any kind of benefit? I'm kinda bummed you can't start a drift by gearing down-up rapidly like in Daytona or Outrun 2. I've quickly checked top speeds and there doesn't seem to be a difference between auto and manual.

Also just my opinion but track design (I'm talking about the actual design of the tracks here, not backgrounds) is kinda lacklustre. It doesn't hold a candle to Sega racers on that front.