You'll like it if u look past some serious problems. Its fun as a game n a sequel, but needs improvements in many areas.
User Rating: 7.2 | Hard Truck 2 PC
Hard Truck 2 belongs a rare category of truck driving simulators. Its not only about truck racing like its predecessor, but much more than that. Unfortunatley, the truck simulator fails to live upto its claims totally. Hard Truck 2 starts with you as a truck driver who has to make a living and ultimately build a transport company by hauling goods between places. Needless to say, there are a variety of trucks to drive.But u start with a slow model. The trucks are modelled really beautifully. You have a fairly big map to drive around. Scattered around the map between the cities are repair shops, where you can also install truck upgrades, petrol pumps to quench your truck's thirst and truck spots to buy / hire trucks. To load a cargo, you need to go to the respective depot in the city. It will have 4 different loading bays with four different cargos to take to seperate destinations. Prize is directly proportional to distance. Your unloading dock is also combined with these bays. Some illegal goods can also be transported, but u need the cargo scanner to find out that goods are illegal. They carry higher rewards but are prone to attract police attention & fine. You will have to be patient to generate enough money to buy a new truck or hire a driver. While driving to a destination, you have a no of competitors trying to score over you by trying to deliever first. The game's first problem starts here. Needless of the upgrades you have, your opponents are always going to catch you before you reach your destination. Also, an opponent that appears far away magically appears near you when you open the map again. Without upgrades, you are sure to loose out sometimes. Fortunately, u have enough money at starting to install upgrades. The best truck "Storm" will require real patience before it can be bought. If u happen to reach the destination first, you get a license to hire a driver that expires within some time limit. Unfortunately, the time limit is too short. By the time you reach the truck you want to hire, it may get expired. Hiring the truck means purchasing the truck as well as paying the driver. As far as driving mechanics are concerned, they are quite satisfactory. Different trucks behave differently and at different speeds. Hurtling a truck down a slope means you are sure to find braking it a problem. Crashing the truck to oncoming traffic is a big letdown, as your truck also gets damaged and you have to spend money to get it repaired. There's a 911 option that allows you to call emergency services incase u crash or are out of fuel. Ofcourse its chargable. Now for the worst part. The game is full of technical glitches and sometimes crashes to the desktop. Its really frustrating to reach the faraway destination and have your game crash be4 u can save it. Sometimes, the games do not get saved properly and the game crashes when u try to load them. Many a times you'll find 2 or more truck stuck / overlapping over each other without reason. Sometimes truck trailers or sheds are suspended in the air. The traffic is sparse. Though there is police in the game and it likes u too much, there is nothing like thrilling chases you may be expecting.Police copters are stationed at some spaces. When u carry an illegal cargo, choppers will tell u to stop n pay fine. Hitting traffic or competitors attracts police attention but hitting the police vehicle itself may not evoke any reaction from the police. Consequently, the fun in playing the game gets reduced. The roads are mined at some places, driving over them damages your trucks as well as the cargo. The prize you get depends on the cargo damage. 50% cargo damage means 50% reward. How much cargo gets damaged depends on its fragility. To protect the cargo means you can't force competitors off the road, hence trying to save yourself is what it ends up with. Oncoming trucks tend to skid across the road when they see you(don't ask me y?) consequently dodging these monstrous projectiles is almost impossible.Scratch them and you have to pay police fine. However, there's also something to be happy about. To start with, the game uses full day n night time cycling like GTA. Rain & fog are also there. Length of day & severity of weather can be set by the player. The transitions are really smooth & create a real life-like world for drivers. The trucks look beautiful and have been modelled to almost perfection. You can drive the truck in cockpit as well as from outside & you can rotate the camera in 360, even in cockpit. Different trucks have different cockpit layouts. U may spend some time just looking at the truck from different angles while its moving. The bad news is that its impossible to control the truck from outside because of its sluggish response. There are a variety of trucks, even 18-wheelers. But driving 18-wheelers is zero fun as the trailers slip off too often at curves. You have to find a trailer to first becum an 18 wheeler. All major brands - Renault, Mercedez, Scania etc are here. As u hire more trucks, you can switch between the trucks and take control. This is where the fun starts to build up. Switching between trucks lets you jump between different map areas automatically. The locations are varied and range from mountain ranges to Texas-like ranches to cities. But the cities are nowhere like those in "18 wheels of Steel". Locations like Greystone are hard to access and will give you a thrilling ride. There is no road but open rugged rocky plain, with pockets of lakes. Getting to this far away destinations means follow another truck all the way and try to overtake him before the cargo bay. There's a shortcut to it, but its very difficult to find and navigate through. Though it'll ensure that you are always the first to reach. The prizes to greystone are usually the highest. There are numerous containers strewn around the landscape. Drive near them and they'll inform you about the cargo that needs to be transported. They are most useful in case u want to make an extra buck in between your cruising. But you may have to veer offoad to really find some of them. There are also a no of shortcuts in between routes. Save for one, they are almost impossible to navigate through until you have a clear idea of where to go exactly. One is through a river, a small slip means you loose your truck and have to reload from previous save. Yes, driving into water deep means truck is lost and so is the cargo. Best is to find it exactly on any cheat map and then go for it. Cargo loss is not entirely crash dependent. Highway robbers come in pick ups to rob you of your cargo. Hit them and you damage cargo, leave them and they start firing at you and blow up your truck. The funny thing is sometimes you will be fined by the police for violating traffic rules if u hit the robber's trucks. Sometimes they'll rob you in full police presence. Comm'on games are not supposed to portray reality that much. Another nice touch is the racing circuit to prevent the hard truck racing touch from getting lost. You will be informed duly when races are to take place and you can head there. Unfortunately, u'll find the race circuit too far away when u r hauling good. The races are good for generating some extra cash, though your truck's chances of suffering damage in the competitor's group increases. As already said, the graphics are good with day n night transitions. Clouds flying across the sky, rain falling on the windshield, water splashing from the tires, river flowing and other special effects are really well-done. The game is not too hard on system requirements either. The entire driving world is huge, though mostly linear. There's no break / loading time while driving between different locations. There are some pretty steep areas also where you can throw down your truck from to get a feel of a truck crash. (ofcourse u'll be knee deep in repairs). The crash effects also look great ranging from bent fenders to blown up tires & trucks. The acompanying sound and techno music also gels well & is nice to hear. Despite all this, its the linearity of the game, the bizarre glitches and initial slow pace that may bore most of the driving enthusiasts. Driving round and round is surely going to bug many. But its the technical unstability & zero traffic that will surely leave you feeling more bugged. Overall, its fun to play if u overlook the problems and have patience. Infact, you may end up playing it all day long also once you start to build up your company nd have more than two trucks with you. Happy trucking gamerz.
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