If there is a driving game up for review, you’d best believe I’ll be putting my hand up to try it out and then scribble some words. Except The Crew Motorfest, as I still haven’t gotten over the disappointment of the first game.
Anyway, what this rambling opening is leading onto is the arrival on Xbox of a new off road driving simulator, featuring honking great trucks driving through places you’d struggle to walk through. Going by the name of Heavy Duty Challenge from Nano Games and Aerosoft Games, this comes featuring the official licence from the Europa Truck Trial league (nope, me neither). But can it bring something new to the table, or is it just another also ran? Well, strap yourself in, we’re going offroad.
I like to start my reviews by waxing lyrical about narratives and stories, what it is driving us to try and push a truck through the most hardcore of places. But with Heavy Duty Challenge, I can’t. There is no narrative beyond “you’re on the start line in a truck, try not to die!”. Short paragraph this time around…
What I can talk about is the presentation, and when we are looking at our various trucks in the pre-driving screen, all is lovely. The truck models are apparently officially branded and feature the real liveries that they do in the real world. While I’m sure this is lovely for those of you out there who follow this league, I was none the wiser. It’s not exactly Gulf or Martini racing liveries, is it?
Still, the trucks look pretty nice. However, when we come to the visuals found while we are out in the wild, driving about, everything here just looks a bit last gen. It’s all sort of blurry and indistinct, with some of the worst pop-in I have seen since Tomb Raider on the PS1. Heavy Duty Challenge looks a bit rushed, a bit unfinished.
The sound is also a bit all over the place, with the engines of the different trucks sounding remarkably alike; a dull roar. The rest of the sound effects are pretty underwhelming too – if you fall off a bridge in your truck, for example, (not that I ever did, you understand) then you’d expect it to sound like the end of the world, but no, it is the same as if you bump a tree. Also, on the realism scale, when a truck has fallen over, I’m fairly sure you can’t get it back on its wheels by steering and reversing, but you can in this game! So much for a “Ultra realistic physics simulation” eh?
Well, now that we know that Heavy Duty Challenge looks a bit ropey and has no story, how does it play is the next question. And I guess the answer depends on what you expect from the game, to a large part.
Let me explain. In order to get fully onboard with the driving that HDC presents, it is always a good idea to try out the tutorial missions first. These do a good job of introducing you to the different categories of trucks – they can be two axle, three axle, or, wait for it, four axle rigs that we take out for a spin. All drive slightly differently. Obviously a nippy little two axle truck is the hare to the massive four axle tortoise, if you will. Each tutorial consists of a course that you have to drive and get the best time on, and the missions do a good job of teaching you how to use the manual gears and also how to lock various differentials to give the best traction across tricky terrain. So far, so good, and I enjoyed these tutorials. In fact, I was raring to go out into the world of against the clock competition, especially given the presence of online leaderboards and the like.
Imagine my surprise then that, when sat on the start line in my little sport truck, I drove through the starting gate and found myself in a forest, with no indication of where the track went, or where the end of the stage may have been. Nope, just a forest, some farmland and a selection of sheds and trees. By driving around aimlessly I managed to break the truck, fall down a ravine, off a bridge and get thoroughly lost. I never saw another gate that needed driving through. Apparently there are five gates to find on this course, but no map, no on-screen indications and no frickin’ idea which way to go. The red mist soon descended and I quit out to play something more relaxing, like Lies of P. It’s much less frustrating.
Battle through and the actual driving experience found in Heavy Duty Challenge is good and – based on no experience whatsoever – pretty realistic. If you try to go up a hill in too high a gear, the truck will grind to a halt, and going over rock strewn pathways needs all the differentials to be locked, but you learn this pretty quickly. Toggling the diffs, the gears and the steering to get to where you want to go is pretty engrossing, I have to say.
The camera views vary wildly in usefulness though. The default is the in-cab view, where we are sat behind the steering wheel that moves with no one touching it, which is a bit spooky at first. You can also choose a view from the passenger seat (why?), and from somewhere near the front bumper. However, this viewpoint, my favourite in every driving game, does seem to be mounted behind the bull bars on the front of the truck, which diminishes its utility somewhat. The final viewpoint is behind the truck in the third person, and while this makes the most sense in “seeing where you are going” kind of way, it does somewhat kill the immersion.
The other odd thing is that the camera controls have the axes inverted, and I can’t find a way to put them the right way round. A minor annoyance, but it does add to a growing pile of niggles to spoil the experience.
All in all, Heavy Duty challenge is an odd duck. It looks rough but the actual driving experience is engrossing, even if it is not exactly a laugh a minute. But then, this is meant to be a simulator, not a fun game! The lack of guidance in stages may put you off, but if driving a truck aimlessly at a heady 13mph for hours on end is your idea of fun, then Heavy Duty Challenge will feel like a dream.
