Race hot rods on crazy tracks in this cartoony kart game!  It’s available on all current consoles and PC but reviewed on Switch here.

You can choose to do a single race or a championship where you compete in multiple tracks in a row for points.  The weird thing about the championship mode is that before you start the set of tracks, you have to do a qualifying round where you must do things like avoid exploding barrels or pass through gates on the track.  So that’s a little annoying.  You can select your difficulty from the main menu as well, but even Easy can be tough at times.

Otherwise it’s just your standard kart racer.  You can design your character and car and unlock more as you play.  R trigger for gas, L brakes, and press the A button to use items.  Weapons are your typical cartoony kart racing fare that you’ve seen before.  By pressing the X button, you can drift into corners and that fills up a meter.  You can then press the B button to boost if you have energy in that meter.

The best part of the game are the tracks.  Graphics are pretty good and you race in locations like a giant backyard BBQ party, circus, dinosaur theme park, futuristic city, and more!  Unfortunately the game has a few problems, too.  They don’t make it clear where you can go on the tracks, and if you hit a wall you completely stop.  I even got stuck one time and had to start over.  The other racers tend to bunch up and overtake you when that happens, too.  Plus the announcer gets a little annoying.  This definitely won’t beat Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, but if you can’t get enough kart racers, this one may still provide you with a bit of entertainment.

Kid Factor:

Nothing too violent or objectionable here.  You use cartoon weapons on the other racers, but they just explode and spin out.  In the dinosaur park track, you can drive through giant piles of poop, so there’s some crude humor as well.  Reading skill is helpful for the text, but not necessary just to play.  Younger gamers may find it too difficult, though.  Hot Rod Mayhem is rated E for Everyone.

Tags: Game Reviews