Hot Wheels World Race (PlayStation 2, GameCube, Windows)

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Hot Wheels World Race
Developer: Climax Brighton Publisher: THQ Platform: PlayStation 2 Released in US: October 29, 2003 Released in EU: November 28, 2003 This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused cinematics. This game has unused items. This game has unused sounds. This game has debugging material. This game has a prototype article This game has a prerelease article

Oh dear, I do believe I have the vapors. This page contains content that is not safe for work or other locations with the potential for personal embarrassment. Such as: Vulgar threats at other programmers in the executable.

To do: Research the May debug build. There is a lot of interesting graphics hidden.

Hot Wheels World Race is a game based on the Cartoon Network movie of the same name; to coincide with Hot Wheels’ 35th anniversary. A surprisingly decent game that has a fair share of unused content.

Shoot the curl!

Unused Opening

CREDITS.PSS contains an early version of the opening developer credits with unused transitions. The final game has each developer as a separate file without transitions.

One thing to note is the end contains a "Highway 35" logo containing a different font from what's used in the rest of the series. This was used in the European releases of the GameCube and Windows versions, which were titled "Hot Wheels: Highway 35 World Race". Said logo can be found in an early trailer for the game on the Desert Heat DVD’s special features, the logo is used mainly for vehicle decals. Interestingly, this file is not located anywhere in the PC version. This opening, however, can be seen for early prototypes of the game.

Unused Items

Gallery Videos

Along with pictures of every car, there were plans to have unlockable videos in the Gallery as well, as shown in gallery_info.xml (along with a frustrated developer's notes):

<!-- Gallery Videos - name changed below cuz we aren't having the movie anymore....but leave it here in case someone
changes their mind again-->
   <GALLERY_ITEM_NOT_USED internal_name="credits" locked="true" descriptive_name="GALLERY36" item_type="movie"/>

Unused Graphics

Boy_Band.bog

A poorly rendered image of the 5 team leaders, located in the frontend folder. Note that all drivers in the game used 2D drawings instead of 3D renders This can be seen in a lot of early builds for a placeholder title screen.

Goat.bog

A stock image of a goat, located in the init folder.

35_logo.bog

Leftover from early development builds, located in the frontend folder.

track_select_backgrounds.bog

Leftover from the May 12, 2003 prototype, located in the frontend folder. Interestingly, the only background that is used is in the prototype is the forest background, leaving all the rest unused.

Debugging Material

In track_info.xml, setting "boost_boxes_visible" in any given track to "true" highlights all boost pads and ramps on that track with a green box.

• 

Unused Sounds

File Name	Audio	Notes
fe_angel.wav		A simple ding.
fe_messagepop.wav		This was used for the Game Boy Advance version, albeit highly compressed.
smashcrate.wav		No crates exist in this game, but they exist in the next game, Stunt Track Challenge.
fe_xorg.wav		Seems like a placeholder sound.
wipe.wav		Perhaps an alternate pause menu transition sound?
wrongway.wav		Considering the name, it would have appeared to play when you went the wrong way.

Vulgar developer messages

Located in the executable, at hex offset 00201E50, is a vulgar message of a developer threatening another developer named Duncan.

Unhappy with texture '%s'!
Can't set ARGB4444 for '%s'!
Unhappy with targa '%s'!
Failed to load texture '%s'!
Fuck off!  Unsupported image format '%d' in '%s'!
Dodgy bog standard (Jesus, Duncan!)

Located at hex offset 001FA340 is a funny little message about fragmented memory.

Warning, you have fragmented memory!
Oops Fragmentation Increase
twat

Oddities

Power Rocket and Greased Lightnin'

For some reason, "Power Rocket" and "Greased Lightnin'" cannot be raced against as an AI. This is possibly to help with performance issues. Editing the game files to attempt to load them as AI results in a game crash.

Demo in the PC release

The game crashes sometimes whenever the demo appears after a loading screen.

Missing Sound Effect in PC Version

For some odd reason, buzzsaw.wav doesn't play in Vast Jungle, but it is located in the files of the game.