"Some kids play basketball after school. I have a reputation to defend."
— Max Justice
Hot Wheels: Velocity X is a vehicular combat video game developed by Beyond Games and released by THQ for the PC, PS2, Gamecube, and Game Boy Advance in 2002, based off of Mattel's Hot Wheels toy line. A Game Boy Advance version developed by Saffire also exists, with a much different plot.
A high schooler named Max Justice is forced to cut a street race short when he gets an emergency call from home. Arriving there, he finds the place wrecked—and to make matters worse, there is a car robbery and bombing at his genius father's workplace immediately afterwards.
In retaliation, Max goes to find those responsible and retrieve the stolen cars. With four different criminal racing gangs between him and the masterminds, however, it isn't going to be easy...
Hot Wheels: Velocity X provides examples of:
- Eleventh Hour Super Power: The Quantum Annihilator gadget obtained in the final Adventure mission.
- 20 Minutes into the Future: Although set in 2002, the aesthetics were directly inspired by Batman Beyond; as such, the world looks a degree more futuristic.
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Underworld, very much so; with maintenance tunnels, pipes, and drainage canals all large enough to fit several cars side by side.
- Always Night: Monument City, although it's more like Always Dusk.
- Amusement Park: Downplayed in Crankshaft Bay, which just features a roller-coaster.
- Anti-Frustration Features: If a player’s vehicle ends up upside down, they can push left or right on the control stick to flip it back over.
- Badass Driver: Every named driver.
- Benevolent Architecture: The ramps, half-pipes, loops, and giant cylinders that litter every locale serve no practical function in-universe, but do give plenty of opportunities to pull off stunts and earn boost.
- Big Bad: Otto von Diesel, as the mastermind behind the plot to steal the Prototype car and the Velocity X Project disks.
- Bookends: Adventure mode starts and ends with Max Justice racing against someone. Except in the ending, he's with Sparky in the HW Prototype 12.
- Bottomless Magazines: Averted. Every gadget has limited ammo that must be refilled by getting a pick-up of the same gadget.
- Car Fu: Vehicles can perform sideswipes to attack or get away from opponents. It serves as a means to attack should a vehicle lack weapons/ammo.
- Cliffhanger: Sort of. Otto von Diesel is mentioned as having broken out of police custody at the end, but is by that point defanged enough to not be a threat.
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: The final boss drives a car that's supposed to have low health, but on higher difficulties it takes much more damage than it would otherwise.
- Cool Car: All of them. They are actual Hot Wheels cars, after all.
- Cool Shades: Nitro, the character the player races in Mission 3 of Adventure mode.
- Critical Existence Failure / Only a Flesh Wound: Cars will become increasingly damaged as they lose health and eventually start burning, but can keep driving perfectly fine until they take a point of damage that brings them past zero.
- Crippling Overspecialization:
- The Surfin' School Bus. Mighty Glacier in battle mode, Joke Character everywhere else. Potentially a Lethal Joke Character in the right hands.
- Hyper Mite has the best grip in the game, but this combined with its small size just means that it’s very easy to over-steer with it.
- Cutscene Power to the Max: In the intro to the game along with the first cutscene in Adventure, Max causes his rival's car to catch fire by ramming it mid-air. In-game, ramming opponents deals no damage to them.
- Dash Attack: Every vehicle can perform a sideswipe to damage opponents. The Jet Boosters gadget boosts vehicles forward while enabling them to damage opponents on contact.
- Death from Above: The Oil Drum gadget is launched at an upward angle towards opponents.
- Disc-One Nuke: You can complete all 18 challenges before stepping foot in Adventure, earning you the car Krazy 8s, as well as the ability to use every gadget.
- Die, Chair, Die!: From glass panels to wooden crates to parked vehicles, several stationary objects can be destroyed by either hitting them with a gadget or by driving into them.
- Do a Barrel Roll: Vehicles can barrel roll in the air to earn boost or on the ground to flip themselves right-side up.
- Down the Drain: Underworld, the final level on PC and consoles.
- Either/Or Title: Gains the subtitle Maximum Justice on PS2.
- Energy Weapon: The Laser Cannon, Freon Bomb, and Super Zapper.
- Eternal Engine: Monument City and Crankshaft Bay are full of gas flares, large fans, and giant car engine parts; with Underworld adding giant gears and rails endlessly carting uranium around.
- Fragile Speedster: Several vehicles, like Sol-aire CX4, Vulture, and Arachnorod, have high speed stats while mostly having low armor stats of 30 (out of 100).
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: In Adventure, vehicles are described as being "disabled" when they lose all of their health, despite them exploding when it happens.
- Grandfather Paradox / Ret-Gone: Otto Von Diesel wants to use this to destroy Hot Wheels and the Justice family.
- Have a Nice Death: If the player fails an Adventure or Challenge mission they either hear Max lamenting his failure, Dr. Peter Justice consoling him, or Otto von Diesel taunting him. They may also be treated to their car exploding if it loses all of its health.
- Homing Projectile: The Magnet Mine, which is slow but explodes on contact.
- Just Between You and Me: Otto Von Diesel reveals the Plan after Max defeats every other member of the gang, excluding Rupert.
- Leitmotif: Every level song (except for the first version of Crankshaft Bay) shares a triumphant leitmotif of an electronic-sounding trumpet. This also extends to the victory themes.
- Life Meter: Vehicles start with 100 health and explode once it reaches 0.
- Kill Enemies to Open: Some Adventure mission objectives require the player to disable all enemies in a locked arena to progress or complete the mission.
- MacGuffin: The Disks are the main one, as well as the Uranium, the Data Cube, the Volcanic Gas, the Temporal Transmission...
- Made of Explodium: Often, destructible props. Even gently tapping a (prop) car or gas island will make it erupt in flames.
- Metropolis Level: Monument City.
- Multi-Platform: The game was released on PS2, Gamecube, PC, and GBA.
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Nintendo Hard: The Very Hard difficulty, which has strict time limits and aggressive enemies. - Never Say "Die": When you take out an opponent, it's always described as 'Disabling Their Vehicle' even though the chassis and engine of the vehicle detach from the wheels and slide across the ground, burning, before exploding.
- Nitro Boost: Every car can perform one by earning points from pickups or by doing stunts. There's also the Jet Boosters gadget which grants a short burst of speed per use.
- No Time to Explain: Both Peter Justice and Gearhead do this to Max when he wants to know who Otto is after Sparky drops their name, because of the more immediate issue of the disc and the car with the Data Cube being at risk.
- Police Are Useless: Oh yes. A few examples:
- No police force is ever seen in any part of the game except for some idle, destructible SWAT Vans.
- In addition to this, bomb squads are not present at the Engineering Plant or the Tire Factory in the first two missions.
- You can drive under the 'minimum' speed limit of 75 in some areas of the game.
- Otto escapes police custody after being defeated in the final mission.
- Oil Slick: An odd example. The Oil Drum weapon lobs an oil drum forward which explodes on contact, making any opponents caught in the blast radius spin out.
- One-Man Army: Max Justice.
- Optional Traffic Laws: Not that there's any traffic to begin, unless you count the enemies trying to kill-I mean, "disable" you.
- Pop the Tires: Subverted with the Ripper Wheels, which damage opponents on contact but don't pop their tires.
- Ramming Always Works: Sideswiping and ramming opponents with the Ripper Wheels or Jet Boosters gadgets damages them.
- Ramp Jump: Prevalent throughout every locale.
- Rewarding Vandalism: Weapons and bonus points are sometimes behind crates, pylons, and glass that vehicles can smash through to get them. The same applies for gears and keys, which are collectibles that unlock vehicles.
- Robot Buddy: Gearhead.
- Shifting Sand Land: Turbine Sands.
- Shows Damage: Vehicles look more damaged as they lose health.
- Rule of Three: In Adventure, each locale gets three missions dedicated to it.
- Sickly Green Glow: The crates of Super Fuel (or possibly Uranium) in Underworld have this. The green liquid found in pipes and a giant vat near these crates also pulses slightly.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Burnout Glacier, the fourth locale.
- Super Prototype: The HW Prototype 12, the vehicle with the highest speed stat in the game and is the main focus of the Adventure mode.
- The Cameo: A few Hot Wheels cars you can't drive are seen on signs or as props, such as Semi Fast, Cabbin' Fever, and Speed Blaster.
- Timed Mission: The entire game (save for Joyride) runs on Timed Missions.
- Time Travel: Velocity X is this, involving the Prototype 12's cloaking and the Super Fuel's super-speed capabilities.
- Trainstopping: Happens in Mission 5 with the help of an unstable boulder.
- Under the Sea: Downplayed. Crankshaft Bay has a large underwater tube that players can drive through.
- Vehicular Combat: The majority of the game, with some racing.
- Weaponized Car: Through the use of gadgets you can pick up on the road. All gadgets manifest in the form of some sort of device on top of the car.
- White And Black Morality: Otto von Diesel attempts to erase Max, Dr. Peter, and all their cars via time travel, while Max and Peter justifiably act in self-defense.
- Wide-Open Sandbox: Joyride, which lets the player drive around freely in any (unlocked) locale.
