The 18 Wheels of Steel series has come a long way since its humble beginnings back in 2002. Tagged as Hard Truck: 18 Wheels of Steel (which was a sequel to Hard Truck 2: King of the Road), it was the first that used the Wheels of Steel tag name as the game play differs completely from racing trucks delivering goods. Since then, there were another four instalments where, besides the graphical enhancements, many changes were made like Mexico being left out then arrived back, sleep timer comes and goes and so on. It seems that every game after the first, developers ValuSoft couldn’t make up their minds what to leave out or to use. Well, the sixth game in the series, 18 Wheels of Steel: American Long Haul, it seems ValuSoft finally made up their minds and just chuck everything in from all the previous series thus making this game the ‘final copy’. And it certainly shows as this simulator will be the closest you ever get other than driving the real thing.
So the basis of this game, other than driving a truck, is to run an effective trucking business. What starts your initial outlay is the difficulty level selected at the start of the game. There are three to choose from so I opt for the hardest, as in the truck I own is borrowed from the bank, thus making me $100 000 in debt. The other difficulty levels always starts off with a positive net worth. Yet I’m not sure if there are other factors built in like tougher law enforcements and so on and the manual does tell you either. Regardless, once selected, you can choose whatever city you like to start from the forty plus dotted throughout America, Canada and Mexico. I chose Vancouver because it was wedged at the furthest top left and besides, I love that city.
To earn money is to deliver goods and naturally certain goods will attract higher rewards. That is, delivering perishables needs to be done in a timely fashion however they are pretty sturdy – meaning they can take a fair wack whilst glass are fragile thus sneezing on it will cause massive damage. Yet the sad thing is that there’s no real indication of how quickly you need to deliver it (in the case of perishables) however you have to be insane if you want to haul a load from San Fran to New York as the price for them is not worth the effort. So, as come to expect, there will be some goods that you will ignore completely (e.g. waste) and some you love to do it time and time again (glass). Note that damage goods will result in less financial rewards and will have an impact when getting a contract with that company.
Getting a contract is a good way to earn cash quickly as there’s another feature that incorporates this. This comes in the form of hiring chumps from the rare-to-find hotels scattered throughout America and co. These guys have a five star rating system so the lowest will perform poorly and the full five stars are truckie champs – but naturally cost a lot more to hire as, they too need a weekly wage; so thus you can build your truckie empire. Sad thing though, there’s no competition to speak off so whilst sounding good on paper, there’s no real challenge here. Here’s hoping that maybe you have other competition from, say one to four AI, all bidding to get the best contracts / drivers – that is, the highest bidder wins so-to-speak or stealing your contracts. Whatever the case, your truckie empire will be built all by your lonesome.
So to grab a lucrative contract, you need to deliver three goods for that company. Again the game doesn’t tell you how badly damage it needs to be before they sling back at you however you’ll be wasting your time if you deliver badly damaged goods – just don’t do it. So, once done, you need to have a spare truck and trailer to assign your guy as he doesn’t own a truck – yes, life is tough. Yet a nice feature is the many different types of trucks / trailers to choose from as you cannot haul livestock in an open trailer, for instance. So you need to do a little homework what the company delivers, then buy the trailer that suits that company.
So, once that’s all done, your guy randomly picks up a job for that company and off he goes. So it can be a short trip thus the earnings are quite small to traveling from one part of America to the other thus giving you top dollars. So the longer the distance, the better the rewards however take note that the truck can be busted up good because of the hired driver. Yet, I hired some real losers and the cost of repairing the trucks are quite minimal comparing to the rewards. Yet, for them to get another job is to haul their ass back to home base so it pays to buy up depots however depots are extremely expensive to buy. But in essence, you can sit back and let the cash roll in by using the advance timer as I mentioned before, there’s no competition so it makes you wonder, why am I doing this if it serves no real purpose? I guess buying out the entire map can be a good reason.
Just like in real life, you will get road rage from time to time. Cars suddenly break for no reason or even drive at a cool 10mph in front of you. Other words, traffic jam occurs quite often however I have noticed that driving on the far right lane (I think it’s the emergency lane?) has no traffic so let your truck rip. Another headache are those twists / turns on the major highways – seriously you will get lost and unfortunately there’s no GPS feature. What this means that on the map, it looks like you have taken the right road to enter, say Dallas, only to release it’s an overhead pass so you wind up bypassing the city altogether.
I’m no truck driver however the physics feels pretty solid (and thankfully so considering it’s a truck simulator) – so expect your truck to slow down going uphill and even slower if you’re trailing a heavy load – likewise for going downhill as expected, you’ll speed up. However watch out for traffic lights as they can suddenly change at any given moment and if you gun a red light, the legal status will shoot directly to maximum effect – meaning the next cop car you’ll pass will brutally fine you. This also goes for smashing into other cars (hint: use your indicators to minimise this) and failing to turn on your lights during the night will also increase the legal status. Basically the game encourages you driving safely and not to hoon around.
Like most good simulators, you can upgrade your truck ranging from the engines to cosmetics. I suggest for easy riding, upgrade the breaks first then engines after that, whatever tickles your fancy. Why the breaks first is pretty self-explanatory and the engines, well you don’t want to travel 20mph from Miami to Vancouver, right? Also, I’m not sure what effect the tyres have as I drive pretty recklessly in the snow, wet and sunshine and didn’t feel any real difference. To memory, the snow does tend to slide your truck a little however comparing to rain / sunshine, not much difference at all.
So my real purpose for playing this game is for the love of driving. America / Canada and bits of Mexico has a diverse range of landscapes to discover and thankfully, the game’s visual aspects is quite decent. Nothing ground breaking however still pleasant to look at. In addition to the pretty decent physics, you have a good feel driving around with a massive haul trailing behind. For instance, delivering glass was pretty easy going however when I delivered those oversize tubes through the Rocky Mountains (i.e. from Calgary to Vancouver), with snow smashing on my windscreen, it got my adrenaline running as I need to be very careful dodging traffic as well as ensuring my truck doesn’t tip over. And because you can play your own music using the truck’s radio player, it’s a great experience to have (yet the music needs to be on .ogg format).
So whilst the game’s intent is to build an empire, I felt it failed in that respect as there’s no competition at all. You can sit back, relax and listen to your radio channel whilst having the cash rolling in. Granted, the beginning is quite rough as you need to do some real repetitive jobs (X – Beyond the Frontier anyone?) however once you have the money to buy another truck, trailer and hire additional helpers, the game’s difficulty level gets a lot easier. However, if you, like me, like to drive the open world and seeing vast landscapes, you will enjoy this game as America is a pretty country to see. With its majestic mountain ranges, endless deserts, Great Plains and of course, bustling cities, developers Valusoft chose the correct country to display all of this. However, because it also plays on as a business simulation, it missed the mark.