I've always wanted to be a British sex offender who drives a truck to wow children. Now half my fantasy is complete.
Ahh, UK Truck Simulator, a game with a name that just shows you're in for a world of fun. So, just to show what we're up against, SCS Software is the developer and it's known for doing one thing and one thing only! They make truck simulators, hunting simulators, and diving adventures and a bus simulator one time. They make one a year, every year without fail since 2002. To top it off sometimes they release more than one. For any other company this would cause a dramatic reduce in quality across the board. NOT FOR SCS! The quality in their titles is readily apparent in every aspect.
http://i.imgur.com/HOgMS.jpg Trucks improved with their revolutionary PRISM3D Engine!
Let's get down to the dirty details now. At the start of the game you select your difficulty and choose a starting city from either Plymouth, Swansea, or Southampton with the only difference being your truck type and what .1% difference your share of the cargo is. I chose Plymouth and had a Cornwall native, a drunk Canadian, and two looky-loos along for the ride. Needless to say, I was prepared. So, I'm an American and I instinctively pulled out onto the right side of the road and immediately lost all of my £500 to a traffic collision straight off. I proceeded to crash into the invisible wall around a roundabout and eventually got on the correct side of the road.
There is no GPS in this game for some reason and I relied on my co-pilot (the Cornwallie) for navigation. We were set to take our things (I don't know what the cargo was, it didn't say anywhere as far as I know for the first trailer) to Cambridge. So we had to go through Southampton on our way to Cambridge. First things first, the game is remarkedly alike to the real routes. Sadily, this also means the game is very boring because England is nothing but green and trees along that route. You can also go to Wales and Scotland which are just more England terrain and hillier England terrain The problems begin now. Okay, obviously they couldn't make a city down to all the little details but most cities are five blocks or so in each direction in a grid and only the downtown exists. A little more effort would have been nice. There are some landmarks like the RAC traffic tower and Wellington Monument (it was in the wrong place, according to my copilot) strewn about and that's a nice touch. In previous SCS games you could upgrade individual parts of trucks as well as buy new trucks. Welp, that's gone in this one and you can only buy new trucks at a select few dealers. Also gone is the feature of police cars that chase you. You are now issued tickets for traffic infractions by a ominescent and all-powerful force that knows every move you make and those fines it issues are deducted from your share of the profits as soon as you deliver the trailer. What I miss most is the ability to use your CB radio to receive warnings of speed traps ahead and being able to talk about the weather and traffic conditions in earlier games. I don't know if this is just because CB isn't used in Europe, or what. I'm not a trucker.
The truck can get "damaged" and so can the cargo. I say "damaged" because damage is simply a silhouette of your truck in the upper corner with a red overlay for however much you damaged it. There is no cosmetic signs of damage. There is no deformation, there is nothing like a simulator should have in this instance. This majorly removes from my enjoyment of the game. Sure there's a physics engine, but who the **** cares? DS games have physics engines! Flash games have physics engines!
Now to what you want to hear! You see the beautiful scenery and want to drive off into the sunset, but DENIED! You slam into an invisible wall 3-6 feet from the road in most places. I drove in the median in-between guard rails for about 2 miles before plowing off into the wrong lane with my heavily damaged truck from the prior crash. I damaged it sufficiently to lose a large amount of time and made the shipment late. I made £600 and lost it all 3 miles from Cambridge in a collision. I had enough.
Oh and there is only game music for the final leg of the trip and it's the same every time. There is also a horrible horrible horrible horrible horrible horrible horrible dreadful godawful terrible euroy poppy vocaless song at the menu screen.
GAMEPLAY 4
GRAPHICS 7
SOUND -1000 for the song
PLOT 0 (Yes, I'm detracting for you not giving a story!)
REPLAYABILITY It varies based on how much Aspergers you have
OVERALL 3.5
BUY NOW!
http://www.firstclass-simulations.biz/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=SCS-UKTRUCK http://i.imgur.com/B1qRl.jpg
GOD SAVE OUR BUNKER QUEEN!