My little boy loves hot wheels.  The house is littered with cars, tracks and other strange looking things that I wouldn't necessarily think belong in the hot wheels universe, but never the less, there it is, lying on my floor just waiting for me to trip over it in the middle of the night.  The thing about it is, as the hot wheels toys were getting stranger and stranger looking to me, it turns out that the toy line has gone in a different direction with it's "Highway 35" line.  The toy series is about a scientist who discovers an alternate dimension that was made by other beings from another universe.  This parallel dimension is a series of strange gravity defying race courses.  And of course the scientist designs and builds a collection of super-cars that can handle the stresses and impossible dimensions of these race tracks.  Giving the cars to the worlds greatest drivers, the scientist (Peter Tezla) has offered millions to the driver who can take first place in what he has called "The World Race".  

My initial impression of this game was that it felt almost instantly like an arcade racing game.  The controls are very friendly and even massive mistakes can easily be made up on the games courses as the speeds that these cars reach is quite impressive.  The control scheme is done quite well and the small comfortable GameCube controller has a nice feel to it when steering and activating the power slide or the nitro boost.  This coupled with the games smooth flowing gameplay made playing the first several races almost a little too easy.  

Some gamers who like racing titles will want to know if this game has the love it/hate it "auto-catch-up" feature.  Yes, it does, what this means is that no matter how badly you do, the other racers (controlled by the GameCube) are never really that far off.  Even if you land a stunt so badly you end up on the roof of your vehicle, you can expect to catch up with the pack (who's racing at 165 mph) in mere seconds, if that doesn't sound too bad to you then think about this.  You will never, ever really beat your opponents, no matter how awesome you navigate a course, hitting every boost line and landing every stunt perfectly, at least one of the computer controlled cars will be a mere .05 hundredths of a second behind you.  Sure, you can win a race, but you can't win a race kicking everyone else's butt.  For those of you scoring at home, that means one tiny little mess up, could cost you first place.  This is a nice feature for younger gamers, but older players may find this irritating, I wish there was an option to turn it on or off.   

One nice thing about the game is that there is an absolute ton of hidden things to unlock.  Some require you to finish the race in a certain position, some are found by collecting items on the track while racing and still others are unlocked by beating the different leagues.  In all, there are 35 cars to race with, providing you have found and unlocked them all.  A nice little collection for those gamers who have to find everything a game has to offer.  The tracks themselves are a nice group of strange, twisting courses that have players racing through the clouds or doing barrel rolls in a course that goes through space.  I liked all of the courses and actually found myself chuckling a couple of times when something odd happened my way.  And just so you know, many of the courses have branching paths or jumps that are shortcuts, which allow you to move up a position even quicker then the auto-catch-up can do.  And sometimes, a barrier will appear that wasn't there on the previous lap, that stops you from using the shortcut.  A good idea because it always kept me on my feet.  

Up to four players can play using the split-screen option.  Not my favorite way to multi-play, since the game does go at a break neck speed, and by cutting your TV down into fourths, it can be a bit frustrating as the horizon becomes that much more difficult to navigate.  

I liked the clean lines of the graphics and the game certainly has vibrant colors on each of the levels, I swear, on a couple of them I thought I was playing an old Sonic the Hedgehog game from the Dreamcast.  The game never suffers from lag or slowdown even when there is a lot of action happening on the screen.    

A good family title as there is no violence and the cars never blow up or cause the driver any harm.  Perfect for the young hot wheel lover on your holiday list.

Gameplay: 8
Easy to use controls on an incredibly forgiving race course.  This one is easy for the little ones.

Graphics: 7.8
Just like the cartoon (yes, there is a cartoon) the game is bright and clean with lots of strange places to race.  

Sound: 7.0
The band Smashmouth has a song that is played for the game called "Hot", a decent enough tune.  The car sounds are a bit lacking though, I expected more and got less.  

Difficulty: Easy
It's made for young gamers, I tore through the first two leagues in less then 90 minutes, and that was because I wanted to race a couple of courses more then once because I liked how they played.  

Concept: 8.4
I like the idea of a dimension of wild race courses and vehicles designed for their rigors.  I half expect another title to come out with the same idea only grittier levels and maybe some combat thrown in.  

Overall: 7.5
Like I said before, here is a good family title with fun race courses, tidy graphics and race cars that your child can actually collect, since all the cars in the game are also toys.