[upbeat jazzy tunes] [computer buzzes, beeps]
So today on LGR let’s take a look back at one of the most straightforward,
aptly-named games of the 90s. Hot Wheels: Crash!
Developed by Prolific Publishing and published *not*
by Prolific Publishing, but by Mattel Interactive in 1999 for Windows PCs. Hot Wheels:
Crash is a game where you crash Hot Wheels. That’s about it, succinct and to the point.
“Crash your way to victory!” Take your favorite Hot Wheels vehicles and create outrageous
crashes – in real time 3D, ooh. As amusing as I found Hot Wheel Stunt Track Driver back then,
yeah, being a full motion video game its opportunities for chaos
left something to be desired. Not so with the perfectly-titled ‘Crash,’ featuring twelve Hot
Wheels vehicles and over two dozen maps to riotously run over and ruin. And even more
if you had an internet connection, with additional levels being offered as free downloadable content.
Fancy! It even came with a free Hot Wheels mousepad inside the box, an apparent $10 value.
And a legit Hot Wheels diecast vehicle shown off proudly in this bottom-right corner window.
Quite the selling points. As for the car itself, it’s a Tow Jam model with a black paint job
and ‘CD-ROM Interactive’ livery only available as a pack-in with ‘Crash.’ Neat! The mousepad though
is less so, with physical properties leaving much to be desired. The design is fine I guess,
featuring NASCAR’s number 44 Pontiac Grand Prix driven by Kyle Petty. But it’s one of those
cheap hard-surfaced plasticky pads, and after being folded up in that box, it’s not exactly
suitable for padding any mice. It does at least make a nice little tunnel for our Tow Jam car,
so there’s that. And hey, you also get a hundred hour free trial for America Online 4.0 Gold,
a top-notch drink coaster if I’ve ever seen one. And in here's a fold-out poster
featuring ads for all kinds of late 90s Hot Wheels Interactive multimedia.
On this side anyway, with the opposite plastered with Matchbox products instead. Something that
continually catches me off-guard since Hot Wheels and Matchbox were competitors when I was little,
but Mattel bought ‘em out in ‘97 so whatever, consolidate my childhood why dontcha. Finally,
we’ve got the game itself on a phenomenally blue CD-ROM. Along with an instruction manual
packed inside the jewel case, with the usual black and white pages covering installation,
gameplay, and troubleshooting. Far more detail than required for a game about smashing virtual
diecast cars into things and making them explode, but hey, I appreciate the effort. And with that,
let’s get a Windows 98 PC going, install the game and collide some cars to cause copious chaos!
Hot Wheels Crash begins with a couple of interlaced logos and intro videos,
with the main one setting you up for the so-called “plot.” In theory you play a stunt driver driving
around movie sets, pulling off crazy moves while the cameras roll, capturing footage
for some bonkers action flick. In practice, it’s nothing more than an excuse to smash
virtual Hot Wheels cars into virtual buildings and props. Which is fine, I don’t need or even
want a storyline in my Hot Wheels game, dang it. Just lemme crash crap into crap and I’m fine!
[car smashes into things, things explode]
[so many explosions]
[chuckles]
Hot Wheels: Crash, everyone! This is the entire game, no more, no less. You’re provided a
selection of levels, or stunt scenes, to complete -- separated by difficulty and
playable in any order you wish. And the goal is to cause the maximum amount of carnage possible
by smashing your vehicle into things in such a way that it causes a Rube Goldberg-esque effect
of ever-escalating mayhem. As with many things in life, you don’t have any control over things
after it's in motion, you just set things up as best you can and let it play out. And then you’re
told whether or not you succeeded, with items glowing green if destroyed and red if you didn’t
manage to break them. It’s kinda brilliant, and I really wish I’d played this back then. Not only
for the charming late 90s 3D graphics, but just... considering how much I enjoyed making stop motion
Hot Wheels crash videos on VHS as a kid, and how much I loved Burnout’s “Crash” mode in the 2000s.
In fact, the latter feels like a direct descendent of what’s going on here. Hot Wheels: Crash feels
so much like a prototype for what later came in the Burnout series that I immediately looked up
the developers while making this video to see if there’s any direct connection. There’s not,
as far as I can tell, but I have to wonder if anyone at Criterion played this before or
if it’s just such an obviously awesome idea that it was inevitable. Regardless though, Hot Wheels:
Crash is a dead simple game with a great premise, kind of an ideal pick up and play party thing.
Each map presents you with a scene of relative calm, with an assortment of buildings, objects,
vehicles, and terrain in-between you and your goal. And of course, that goal
is absolute destruction, with the objective being to gain at least 100 damage points on each level.
There’s no choosing a vehicle, each map has its own predetermined variables. But you do get to
choose your launch method, angle, and speed. Three launchers can be selected from the options menu:
power launcher, catapult launcher, and hand launching. The first two basically work the same
from what I can tell, where you pull the car back to a certain power level and press a key to send
it flying forward in whatever direction chosen at the start of the scene. Hand launching is far
less predictable, mimicking the action of actually pulling and pushing a Hot Wheels toy by using the
mouse. It’s a cute gimmick, but it’s not reliable enough to wanna use for any serious gameplay. Heh,
as “serious” as this gets anyway. Coming from the same developer as the ‘Return Fire’ series,
it’s no surprise that what we’ve got here is all about wreaking havoc in simple environments.
You’re not armed with any weapon systems, but who needs ‘em! Your car is the weapon,
and everything explodes. So just point, shoot, and watch as the world burns.
[all of the exploding]
And despite first impressions, there is a little more going on than simply ejecting your
car forward as fast as possible without thought. Like yeah, 9 times out of 10 that works just fine,
for a little while at least. The further along you go the more complex the maps get,
to the point where it truly isn’t apparent at all what you’re supposed to do from the outset.
Eventually there are so many possible attack angles and scattered objects across the map that
it doesn’t seem possible to destroy ‘em all with a single crash. However, this breadth of choice is
largely an illusion, and the open-ended nature of these levels isn’t quite as open as it may
appear. Each scene has a pretty specific method of completing it, and while you can try all sorts of
things along the way to see what happens, there’s very little leeway in actually solving each map.
In that sense, Crash really is more of a puzzle game than anything else,
with the correct angle and speed of your collisions setting off a specific set of
events resulting in a predictable high score. There’s a bit of variance allowed, specifically
so that you can smash into bonus items along the way for extra points. But by and large,
the majority of the game plays out the same series of events from player to player,
and once a puzzle’s solved it’s solved. As you progress you’ll unlock new vehicle parts, and once
that’s complete a new puzzle map is unlocked where you can use that new vehicle to do the same thing
you’ve been doing all along. And that’s about it! Do this a few times over the course of three level
groups and you’ll unlock three more special maps. And these are where the game changes its tune a
little and becomes even more like Burnout’s crash mode. Instead of there being a preset solution,
these extra maps have no specific outcome. Instead the goal is to gain as many points as possible by
causing a large chain reaction of collisions and explosions. It doesn’t tell you how many
points you need, but it’s between two and five hundred per map, so just get as much as you can
and eventually you’ll accumulate enough points to unlock the final map: the volcano. One of
the most deceptively tricky maps in the game, all you need to do is get your van inside the opening,
detonating the entire mountain. For some reason, doesn’t matter, HOT WHEELS.
[volcanic detonation]
And yep, that’s the game! You can play the puzzles over again to try and achieve a higher score, but
there’s nothing else to unlock to my knowledge. About the only thing left are the downloadable
maps, but that’s unfortunately no longer an option. Referred to as Internet Movie Sets,
you’d download these by entering a password in the options menu, with the idea being parents could
prevent kids from hopping online too easily. The password is printed in the instruction booklet and
well, it’s a really secure one, no one would ever guess it. With that in place, the game closes and
opens a downloader program. Which at one point would’ve connected to a server to download the
files but as expected it no longer functions. The maps aren’t on Internet Archive either that I’ve
seen, which makes sense if the files were stored on some long-gone server and not on the website.
So if anyone happens to still have those, lemme know! Looks like there might’ve been six of them
and it’d be great to see what those contained and get them saved for posterity. Heh, though I can’t
imagine we’re missing much objectively speaking, since Hot Wheels: Crash... is what it is,
take it or leave it. It’s a childhood playtime experience brought to virtual life, where you’re
free to wreck cars and smash things up without actually wrecking your cars or smashing things up.
Yeah I would’ve been all over this had I come across it back then. Ah who am I kidding,
I’m 35 and this is still fun! It’s simple, and it’s over in less than an hour, but I
had a constant grin watching the carnage unfold making this video, I can’t help it. And I hope
you enjoyed taking a look back with me, whether or not you’ve ever played Hot Wheels: Crash yourself.
[jazz intensifies] [explosions explode]
And do check out my prior Hot Wheels retrospectives if you liked this one, or stick
around, there’s new stuff always in the works here on LGR. And as usual, thank you for watching!