Hard Truck: 18 Wheels of Steel

The Good
This game has a lot of feeling inside. It's fun to play, easy to get into and somehow addictive. I found myself longing to finish work in the evenings to get back home and do some hauls to relax.

Graphically the game is rather simple, not too many bells and whistles. I found the graphics adequate to support the whole basis of the game and won't complain about them. Coming to think that the game was released in 2002 though makes me skeptical, but ok we'll survive with that I guess!

On the sound front now, the game features some absolutely killer southern rock - metal (Van halen meets older ZZ-Top meets Motorhead) tracks that will have you moving to the rythm in no time! Fantastic work on the music! Absolutely brilliant! It's even more addictive when you're roaring the monster on the freeways!

The Bad
While the game has a lot of feeling, the hero (the trucker in our case) you're impersonating hasn't got any character at all. Now for all I know, truckers are wild things going straight for the brawl and the girls. This game's trucker however is soooo damn quiet you hardly notice his existence. What reaction would you expect from a trucker if you suddently enter his lane and hit the breaks in front of him??? You'll be lucky to escape with some bruises on your skin!!! But Noooo, our trucker is sooooo quiet even when some moron decides the last millisecond to enter our lane and hit the breaks!!! He's even quieter when you have some old bloke (probably) in a 70's station going on 30 in the overtaking lane. Hitting the horns doesn't do any good on them either.

The whole driving situation of this game is unrealistic. If you crash somebody else's car nothing really happens, no problem. Go on and drive on the opposite lanes, no problem too, even if a police car's coming toward your radiator. Perhaps the police mentality is sponsored by Dunkin Donuts on this game.

The trucks driving behavior is unrealistic too!!! It takes a good 30 seconds to reach 10-15mph/h from braking position. You'll notice this on the traffic lights when inside cities. As soon as they go green they're turning back to red and you're just passing the middle of the crossing street!!!! Dunno if this happens with the top of the range trucks too but sofar I've managed to get myself a T1000 (middle range). The handling of the truck is simply UNREAL!!!! You can't go on 80mph on a curve, break at the tip and not loose the tail of the trailer!!!!!

Finally, I believe that this game could be a lot more! Simply if the creators would involve much more elements of the whole trucking cult (and we're talking about a major cult here) the game would be much more interesting and fun to play. For instance I would (and I believe most male trucker-gamers) like to see some girl hitch hike action, taking a break and going to a bar for a brawl or arm wrestling, sending money to the ol'wife back home Alabama, doing some nasty trick transports for that extra cash, more customisations and variety on the truck selection and stuff like that. This could be massive actually!

And last and most importantly the plot behind the whole game is unsufficient: Drive cargos around, get paid for it, upgrade and buy a better truck, hire more drivers and keep up the profits sort of thing... Boring... Ok it's good fun, but I reckon that the game won't keep you coming back for more than 2-3 weeks of playing. The travelling areas are limited, you have to choose from the beginning on a certain area, but after two days (real time) travelling you know every stone on the scenery and nothing more can be expected.

The Bottom Line
Ok! first things first. If you're looking for a fast racing game this might not be your ideal cup of tea. This is an easy going game involving some driving and some managerial sections. You have to plan what type of cargo, where to, where you're stopping for diesel and repairs etc. The actual driving section of the game is fun and will help you pass a quiet evening with truck fun, but don't expect anything more than that. You'll have to compete against the contract delivery time, but with a bit of high rev pushing you'll be okay easily.

So there! An average truck driving-managing simulation. I would not recommend this to the racers among us cause they'll find it boringly annoying. It's a good game to try though if you've never driven a truck sim before.

My personal opinion is that I guess I like it! And I like it a lot. Only thing is that I have the suspicion that in 1-2 weeks I will uninstall it and put the cd back to the box and let it catch dust till my urges to drive a truck conquer me again.