11 Best 2021 Video Games You Didn't Play

3. Hot Wheels Unleashed

Not a single soul expected the latest Hot Wheels game to be anything other than completely forgettable outside the hardcore fanbase, but oh, how wrong that assumption was.

Hot Wheels Unleashed is nothing less than an essential arcade racer, up there with Burnout and Inertial Drift. A superbly balanced, physics-dependant game with a set of unlockables for the ages, hurtling around sidewinding courses as Back to the Future's Delorean, Batman's Batmobile - or just a Hot Wheels burger van - feels incredible.

Besides looking stunning - and featuring some lifelike renders of the cars themselves, replete with paint flecks and grime as a race plays out - Hot Wheels' track designer is something else. Placed inside a bizarrely fleshed out basement you can unlock arcade cabinets and furniture for, here you can literally make any track you put your mind to.

Taken as a full package - and again, none of this would work without expert handling at the core - Hot Wheels Unleashed is the best thing to bare its franchise name outside the collectibles themselves.