Seriously now, licensing pinball themes is more often than not an exercise in appealing to childhood nostalgia. So I go back to when I was eight years old. Hot Wheels and TMNT were probably my big two obsessions of the day. Flash forward to 2020 and there are new pinballs(!) based on both properties in production at the same time a few miles apart.

Combined with the uninspired layout and price point for how stripped down it is

It's the perfect game for API to have put out when it did. Being lower in price means that more people now spending more time at home than they'd want to might think about buying a pinball, maybe for the first time.

Most importantly, it has a quality feel. I play API's games on location alongside WMS/Bally classics and, if I was deaf/dumb/blind Tommy in there, I wouldn't be sure who made what.

And the first thing they did was make one of the unicorns JPop promised a reality, and made a better game out of the finished Houdini in the process.

To me, it's the fact that they had me come up to their new headquarters in Palatine, and I told 'em up front I'm a broke-ass who's probably two stimulus checks away from buying any NIB pinball, even one selling for less than 25-year-old used "'A' title" from the WMS era. I'm just a guy who's played and enjoyed both Houdini and Oktoberfest at locations in my neighborhood. I didn't get anything for what I've had to say about Hot Wheels. I ordered my own pizza to eat while I was there. I was provided water and pinball, and in return they didn't install a bill acceptor on the game.

I'll say this, Hot Wheels is far and away the most location-friendly game the company has made. It's a game that anyone can walk up to, without reading the rules, make some shots and make things happen. When you look at the games on the top 50 of the Pinside rankings, they're more often than not the games like that. That's why Medieval Madness works. That's why Monster Bash works. That's why Scared Stiff works. And, in the same way, that's why Hot Wheels works.

It's no revolutionary layout, sure, just a fast and flowy one fitting the Hot Wheels theme.