Just from the title this screams fun right? Well I was honestly very hesitant to pick this up but after being convinced by the dev. To try it out, I was honestly surprised at how detailed this game is. There are a large number of vehicles to choose from, missions to complete and once you master the controls of driving, the game draws you in and you just have to keep playing to figure out each vehicle’s unique controls and how adding in the weight of your cargo effects how the vehicle drives on and off road.
What struck me most about this game is the planning and execution of each mission. You start off in a warehouse and get in a loader to put boulders into a dump truck before making the delivery on the road. Other off road missions include driving a forklift (without a license!) It is the kind of thing that white collar people like me live for, to be able to play around in this environment without any of the danger of real world consequences. A little glitch with this is when loading cargo on if you do accidentally do it lopsided or oddly placed, the game will auto-fix it. It takes a little of the challenge away of having to fix this yourself and try and drive.
There are a wide range of vehicles to choose from (over 20 I believe) and while the mechanics are essentially the same, each vehicle has its own individual way of handling. This took me about three quarters of my time was figuring out weight distribution and balancing the vehicle on the road through different terrains and environments. Usually in a simulator game like this it is not as detailed as this game is. There is a real world element feel to this that sets it apart from anything else in the same genre. The game also does a really surprising thing and lets you unlock games rather quickly. There are no long slogs here trying to unlock more vehicles resulting in less of a grind required. While this doesn’t reduce the amount of time you spend with the game necessarily, it does provide a more satisfying experience that will propel and motivate you onto the next delivery to earn the money required.
Camera wise this game offers two viewpoints, one internal and one external camera that are easy to manipulate in tight spaces when you need both with a larger vehicle. Going hand in hand with this is the detailed graphics that show the love and effort that have gone into this game. The internal of each vehicle looks scarily realistic and help create the illusion of manning the trucks. What was a little lacking was the traffic externally, now we are in stage 3 lockdown at the moment so there are less cars on the world IRL, however to make this game a little more challenging I would have appreciated some more traffic, particularly in the city to help it feel a little close to real world.
When it comes to open world, you use your GPS navigation system to travel to your destination. You can veer away from this and it will find an alternate route if you want to take a bit longer. Long missions do rake in more cash but will take more of your gameplay time. I found a good mix up of timed missions helped keep the gameplay feeling fresh easing out the repetition.
As a simulator this game provided me with everything that I was expecting and then exceeded them. The smooth transitions from warehouse to road to giving players an open world to drive around was seamless and helped create an immersive experience. The game works with keyboard and mouse and spectacularly if you have a controller connected, I found the Xbox Elite Series 2 a great controller for this experience. If you are looking for the most realistic sim out there for trucks, this is definitely the game to play.
Review by Alaisdair Leith
