For racing games, the sim and “simcade” space has mostly been occupied by the big players like Polyphony Digital, Codemasters, EA\Slightly Mad Studios and Turn 10 Studios. With the exception of Codemasters, none of these studios have produced a game for the Switch. Zero Games Studios have worked to produce a simcade experience from the ground up that would harken back to classics such as Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport. Can such a premiere racing experience be produced for the aging Switch platform?
Zero Games has produced a number of games that cut across many different genres. Classic Racers Elite bears the most resemblance to Hot Lap Racing; in fact, Hot Lap feels almost like a spiritual successor to Racers Elite but with more modern vehicles and tracks thrown in, coupled with an updated game engine. Zero Games has also produced a couple of coach bus sims, so vehicular action is definitely not a foreign language to this team. Still, Hot Lap feels like a much larger and more ambitious project than any of the previously mentioned titles, given the broadened scale, and it would be tough to say they nailed it.
Hot Lap Racing takes the Gran Turismo approach of teaching you how to handle a vehicle in their newly built physics engine. While you can certainly jump into a solo race, career mode steers you through their brief racing academy. Here you will learn how to accelerate, brake, and corner around the track given a set of circumstances. It’s here where things begin to stumble. First, there certainly seems to be a language translation barrier in some of the instructional messages (Zero Games is based in France). If you hit a cone, you are warned with a “Don’t touch the material!” message, as if I accidentally brushed against a mafia don’s suit. “Hey, jabroni! Don’t touch the material!” Also, some of the instructions to complete a trial aren’t exactly spelled out, and you are forced to figure it out on your own. The tutorial has action gates in which you are expected to execute certain commands. Accelerate and turn gates expect you to be doing this just before you hit the gates or you fail the trial; however, the stop gate wants you to brake well before the gate and stop before passing it or you fail. It’s minor but still annoying.
In the actual races, while you are treated to a decent car collection that cuts across several class types, some of the classes have only one car in them. It is nice to see a historical variety of vehicles; we simply need more of them. GT class 1 has three cars, for example: a Fiat 500 Abarth, a Lameia cup car and Liger JS2R. Those last two are specifically French, which is interesting since we don’t normally see those cars in racing games, so it’s a nice inclusion. Then you find yourself in the production class which has two segments: modern and historical. Both have a single car in the line up: a Crown Magic MK2 and a Gunma Prestazione x2006. I’m sorry, but what were those? The Crown Magic is a Dukes of Hazzard spec Dodge Charger and the Gunma is a 2006 Subaru Impreza WRX STI. It’s a puzzling situation to say the least, which makes me wonder if the studio ran into licensing issues. That certainly doesn’t take away from the driving experience, but I find it a bit head scratching that only half of the game’s cars use licensed names. To that end, it would have been great to see a Lancer Evolution, VW Golf R32 or something else in that class to add more variety; single-make races can be a bit dull in the world racing rivalries.
The race track selection is pretty nice and they are rendered pretty faithfully with graphics that really seem to be pushing the limits of the Switch’s near decade old Tegra X1 processor. There are plenty of international locations to choose from, many from France (of course) but I was pleasantly shocked to see the inclusion of a local(ish) Gingerman Raceway! There are also a couple of fictional locations thrown in such as the French Riviera and Flagstaff, which I suspect are supposed to be stand-ins for the Circuit de Monaco and Austin’s Circuit of the Americas.
I hope to see more tracks added in the future and more events as the current event line up looks to be rather short, clocking in at 13 career events before the Formula Extreme series (a futuristic Formula 1 type series). We also get real historical driver profiles of who is on the grid, which is pretty cool.
The audio work here is done quite well. There’s no licensed music on tap, but the funky guitar-laiden main menu music is catchy and the rock/ electronic soundtrack during gameplay does the job of setting the driving vibe with verve. The car audio itself is just okay. There is an effort to make the cars sound different but exhaust notes fall short of feeling genuine to each vehicle; this may be mostly due to the limitations of the Switch platform. I would also like to hear more refined road noises and drivetrain chatter while using the in-car/cockpit view.
Control and drive feel can make or break a racing game, and I am happy to report that the controls work well. It is a little difficult to drive smoothly with the Joy-Con sticks but works just fine with the usual gas brake combo being at ZR and ZL, respectively. There is currently no wheel support, which really kills part of the “sim” part of the simcade. The most sim part of Hot Lap Racing is the academy portion and the racing class setup. There is no tire or fuel management system, and no car damage nor pitting. GRID Autosport at least damaged your car if you generated contact. You can do online racing or 4-player split screen, which is obviously better in docked mode. As a player, you do have a driver reputation rating that encourages clean racing and gets you more points after each race, but this can be tough with the way the AI moves to block passes and outright crashes in front of you, creating unavoidable contact and causing an incident to be put in your name. The difficulty of the AI can be adjusted to make the game more approachable, which feels like what this game is trying to accomplish at the end of the day by removing some of the more complicated elements of sim racing. Still, even at its easiest setting, the opposing AI will just ram you with no repercussions and even a little contact causes your vehicle to understeer like a pig in mud at times.
What Zero Games Studios has created with Hot Lap Racing is the foundations of a solid simcade racing game. There seems to be a lot to be desired in terms of content, but the team has focused mostly on the joy of driving and accessibility. While it falls short of being the motorsport G.O.A.T on the Nintendo Switch, it represents a potential top tier contender in the genre, trailing behind GRID Autosport. The current pros outweigh the cons but as time goes on, it will be interesting to see what gets added. If all of the small gripes get cleaned up, Hot Lap Racing could just take the pole position.
