It's back. You want to like this product, don't you? Who didn't dream of
driving a truck when they were young? The preview (there's a link at
simracingnews.com) even makes it look fun, and quite "simmy", in both the
sense of simulating the physics of driving, and simulating the life of a
truck driver (kidney belts and coffee optional). However, one thing that
scares me off this one, or makes me adopt a wait and see attitude, is the
fact that it is developed together with a osftware house (SoftlabNSK or
something like that) who produced a dismal demo a while ago of their super
new driving simulator). That and the fact that Hard Truck 1 was a dog...
Still, if it was somewhat decent, and a bargain title, I could see
snapping it up for a little bit of fun. I just moved house last weekend,
throttling a mid-sized box truck for all it was worth (it was only worth
about 120kph) and found myself leaning into the turns and having a great
time turning that big, flat steering wheel.
Stephen
I bought Hard Truck 1 for 19$ and definately got 19$ worth of fun from it.
It did kind of suck in a way, but it was also a weird zen sort of thing. I
got off into a swamp kind of deal with the truck and sort of got stuck, but
I was able to work it out with very deliberate and methodical actions,
reversing gears and sawing the wheel back and forth. I got the sensation of
being stuck in the middle of nowherre in a truck, so I guess the simulation
aspect was good enough! It would give you some interesting damage now and
then, like dropping gears in the transmission and bending axles. You could
nearly kill the motor and have to limp through to the destination at 30 mph.
I like the way it modelled cargo damage and rated you accordingly. I found
myself zoning into the rumbling drone as I bounced along doggedly trying to
get to the depot with a busted up truck. This is a unique game and if all
the rough edges were filed off it could be pretty cool. I'll buy HT2 when
it comes out and report back in case nobody else wants to take the plunge.
~daxe
