Back once again with the ill on-track behavior, I’m of course covering the racing game being Phenixx Gaming’s unofficial racing correspondent. This time with Zero Games Studio and Maximum Entertainment’s Hot Lap Racing, an arcade racing title that for some reason is tagged “automobile sim.” If you go into Hot Lap Racing expecting tight controls, balanced handling, and a near-perfect example of multiple disciplines, I’d like the medication you’re on. Spanning 60 years of racing, you’ll throw everything from an Abarth to 1960s Brabham (looking like a Chapman-designed Lotus) over curbs and even dale. As in “over hill and dale,” not Earnhardt.

Taking three major disciplines, you’ll encounter the stages of Single-Seater racing, GT, and Endurance; F4-F1, Porsche 911s to stock car racing (NASCAR), and Le Mans/IMSA. For a hot minute on some hot laps, I was getting frustrated and annoyed with Hot Lap Racing as it absolutely is focused on binary arcade handling. Being as cocky as I am, a 17-time F1 World Champion through multiple years (that’s a joke!), I thought I’d take a 90s-00s F1 car around one of the licensed tracks. Only to find traction control isn’t always about traction control, it is about stability, and that manual transmission with an Xbox controller is typically crap.

However, hot laps and leaderboards aren’t the focus of Hot Lap Racing. Somewhat akin to Project Cars 3 or Gear.Club Unlimited 2, there is a hint of sim racing desires under the arcade racing bonnet. In the career mode which takes you from lower formulae and championships, you will join a championship battle that may only include three tracks/layouts, often with single-digit lap counts. Thankfully there is a piece of UI saying how long each championship should take, for example, the F4 Championship is only 20 minutes to complete. Nonetheless, beyond the stylized graphics, the handling can feel predictably lacking.

One example of this that comes to mind when thinking about arcade racers is gravel traps and grass. We used to see them all the time but thanks to the FIA, tarmac for miles has been the protocol of many modern circuits. Typically in arcade racers, you’ll find as soon as you hit the gravel, it is like you’ve dropped an anchor the size of the Titanic from the rear end, momentum and general physics be damned. I’m not saying Zero Games Studio are stupid but it is a somewhat dated and less sophisticated method of punishing the player, especially when controls feel binary and anxious to do what you always want.

On both points: Select corners and cars allow you to go flat out through them, almost. If you’ve ever played both styles, sim racing, and arcade racing, you’ll know the latter automatically lifts you off the throttle a bit and you can go full-tilt over the racing line in bright red. In sim racing and under the cruel mistress we call the laws of physics, the kinematics of a racing car would result in you waking up in an ambulance and asking why you have a tire barrier wrapped around your throat. Nevertheless, the tutorials for Hot Lap Racing try to bring to light the importance of complex braking and cornering methods.

The problem with that is the fact an F1, F2, Endurance racing car, and even a road car like the Abarth 500 you race early on, all move and react differently to different styles of racing. One significant point stressed in the tutorial was that you brake and then turn, as in brake fully then turn, only picking up the throttle after the apex. Maybe this is to give the AI a chance, as it attempts to mount you for the nearby David Attenborough film crew. Realistically you’d pick the throttle back up before the apex so you can accelerate out of the corner; slow in, fast out.

I keep saying it, but the steering feels rather binary, even on a controller where you could, in theory, be a little smoother. The other point to hammer home that Hot Lap Racing isn’t a Gran Turismo-like is that there are no options to set up cars, including F1 machinery. To a degree, I don’t mind that, but it does mean trying to figure out how to get a grip on this whole, almost rigid system. This is the big thing I have to say about Hot Lap Racing, I don’t hate it despite my dismissive tone thus far.

Hot Lap Racing isn’t challenging when it comes to on-track battles – you qualify 1st and get an OK launch, and you’ll win the race most likely. The wheel-to-wheel battles aren’t stimulating, or to recycle a word I’ve already said, they aren’t very sophisticated. It is like trying to race wheel-to-wheel with Esteban Ocon, one of you will be committing murder. So if the handling isn’t great, the on-track battles aren’t exciting, and there isn’t a complex understanding of racing lines changing from car to car in the tutorial, what’s good about Hot Lap Racing?

I’ve glanced at a comment or two declaring the graphical fidelity to be on par with a PS2 game or something made for the Switch. Again, I have to point out that Hot Lap Racing isn’t trying to be the almighty Gran Turismo or Metropolis Street Racer (later Project Gotham). We’re not even talking about Gear.Club Unlimited 2. Though all the same, the aim isn’t to be Motor Toon Grand Prix. Oh yeah, that’s a deep cut in Yamauchi-san’s career. However, that’s the point: Despite having licensed cars and tracks, there is a hint of levity from the ultra-realism pushed by other racing titles.

Hot Lap Racing shouldn’t be taken as seriously as some take EA’s F1 titles or even Assetto Corsa, it is a flawed and sometimes frustratingly clumsy arcade racer that also wants to provide racing history of new and old. One of the notable portions you’ll see on the grid and in the Driver Index is real-life drivers that you may have heard of and many you haven’t. Looking up a name or two, their social media presence isn’t strong Vs sites that track drivers’ careers. From a former teammate in a prior F1 game and F1 champion, Formula E drivers, and many lesser-known names, it’s a tiny detail showing something else.

That doesn’t make Hot Lap Racing good, but it makes it interesting for a fan of motorsports. No, motorsport isn’t just F1 and it isn’t two or three series either, there are hundreds of categories and thousands of drivers. One minute you’ll be in a clapped-out 90s Vauxhall Cavalier with worn-out suspension that feels unbelievably light, the next you’ll throw an F3 car around Zolder. That on top of the history and drivers is what I think made me come around to Hot Lap Racing, hopping in different cars every few minutes and seeing people to follow the careers of.

Once you get used to that handling and binary controls, you’ll have a sense of “meh, this is alright.” That’s honestly all Hot Lap Racing is, alright. If the controller deadzone could be fixed or whatever is causing this lazy minute movement then sudden jerks to either side, the handling would be much more manageable. I guess to use the F1 phrases, it is a drivable system but it is very much on the knife’s edge. However, I’ve also brought up a point that I sort of need to make clear: The options menu is dreadfully basic.

The magnitude of your AI opponents extends to “expert,” which unless you get out of the car and run the track, you’ll be lapping in a long race or 30 seconds ahead of. Sure there are several camera options, and the video settings are weirdly detailed for such a stylized title. However, when it comes to controller options you are left only with rebindings. Unlike so many other racing titles you can remap everything to anywhere, but importantly deadzone and sensitivity options aren’t available either for analog sticks or your left and right triggers/R2 and L2.

On the one hand, you have a game that wants to be something of an alternative, but its dreadful AI and lackluster controls/handling make Hot Lap Racing not very exciting and often frustrating to play. After several hours fighting controls and cars that react like George Russell under any sort of pressure, I’ve found minutes where I’ve said to myself “ok, this isn’t bad” Then I’m fighting its clumsy design and I want to use someone’s head as a sausage curb.

Ultimately, no one in six months or six years is going to remember Hot Lap Racing as a great racing experience, and it’s difficult to blame anyone for forgetting it. Committing in one direction or the other may have helped, though I can’t see which the team at Zero Games Studio is aiming for most. If you’re looking for a simple, quick, and dirty fix to your motorsport addiction, Hot Lap Racing is like shooting up behind the bins of a nightclub. It isn’t glamorous and it isn’t something to show off, but it gets you off and makes you feel something. Even if that’s wanting to jump up and down on the AI’s throat.

A PC review copy of Hot Lap Racing was provided by Maximum Entertainment for this review.

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Hot Lap Racing

$29.99

5.5

Score

5.5/10

Pros

• Attention to motorsport history, new and old.
• The driver index showcases young or lesser-known talent.

Cons

• Sometimes buggy and inconsistent; track limits for one.
• Handling and controls feel staggeringly binary.