Kombo's Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.

What The Game's About
Combining some of the better elements of games such as Excite Truck and R.C. Pro-Am, High Voltage Hot Rod Show puts players behind the wheel of adorably overpowered animated vehicles driven by uniquely wild & crazy characters and turns them loose to race laps around a curvy off-road racetrack filled with ramps, boost strips, muddy patches, and other hazards. Hit the ramps just right and hop to launch into the air and soar through floating hoops and stars while performing zany stunts to build a decent boost needed to blow past rivals back on the ground. Single-player, local four-person multiplayer, and time trial modes all revolve around maintaining speed and turning corners efficiently. Online leaderboards rank players based on lap times for those who would rather beat a clock than a rival vehicle.

What's Hot
Hot Rod Show goes the extra mile in the control department, offering multiple control options. The basic method uses just the Wii remote's motion control to steer in a manner similar to Excite Truck, not to mention the ability to perform stunts in the air by shaking the remote furiously. A drifting mechanic that uses the remote's control pad comes in handy for careening around turns. The Wii wheel that's been gathering dust since you finished Mario Kart Wii last year even gets a little use here if you'd rather have something larger to grip while steering. Players who prefer control sticks can use the nunchuk, Classic controller, or the GameCube controller as well.

What's Not
Unfortunately, High Voltage Hot Rod Show has little to offer players who do not like revisiting completed territory. The game features a mere six tracks, while there are several levels of difficulty to explore, you'll find those same tracks rearranged and represented time after time with only slight alterations. While the gameplay is enjoyable and emphasizes repeated performances, I saw everything unique that the game had to show me in less than ninety minutes. There are a few unlockable extras to earn, but unless discovering alternate color schemes for the vehicles excite you, there's not much else to do. The game requires 318 memory blocks on your Wii console, so be prepared to do a little housecleaning if you plan to keep it around. What fits inside 318 blocks? Not the music. The entire soundtrack seems to have been compressed just a little too much to fit within the WiiWare size restrictions, giving it a muffled, low quality quality.



Final Word
Here's the deal with High Voltage Hot Rod Show: it's fun to play and offers a return to the slightly isometric overheard viewpoint of classic racing games before 3D first-person perspectives were king along with accurate motion controls and stunt-type tactics, but it's not a deep game at all. It's easy to learn, moderately challenging to master, and much more fun with friends than alone, but the experience will be over very quickly. Now, it's a WiiWare game so it is not going to be as expansive as one might expect of a disc-based game, and as a quick diversion played in short bursts it's enjoyable, but it will grow stale far too soon for most core players.