Hot Wheels Turbo Racing offers a unique take on the genre. Instead of treating the cars strictly as toys, as the
Micro Machines game does,
Hot Wheels makes a marriage of toy cars and real cars. During most parts of the races, the Hot Wheels cars play realistically. When a powerup is encountered, however, the true 'toy' nature of the car shows itself. Another part of the game that departs from the otherwise realistic physics engine is during jumps. When your car jumps, you can use the controller to control the spin of your Hot Wheels car, allowing you to perform insane twists, turns, barrel rolls, and combinations of the same. It even allows you to switch directions in mid flight. While this is completely impossible, of course, it reminds me of some of the aerobatics I used to make my actual Hot Wheels cars perform, while firmly held between my infantile hands.
Another cool feature in Hot Wheels is the large number of playable cars, including the 'Mystery Cars.' You obtain these Mystery Cars by finding them (disguised, of course) in secret or hard to find areas of the tracks. The neat part of this is that it's not extremely hard to find and obtain one of them, but there are a lot of them to find. There are also a lot of secret passageways that act as shortcuts, as well as some hidden rooms scattered throughout the game. This makes Hot Wheels Turbo Racing more fun when playing a single player game.