Trucks are great. As I began to age out of the 'playing with toys' age, one of my last big Christmas presents was still a huge truck garage playset to back tractor trailers up to, complete with sound effects of rumbling engines, air horns and a macho voice that would say 'Back it up!'. So here we are. While Perkies the driver sits in Dick's Last Resort over in the Excalibur in Vegas, Parallel Universe Perkies has just gotten a job as a 'lorry' driver.
I'm planning to try and do some familiar roads, to see how they compare. I've also got authentic music, as ever - in this case, Steve Wright's Radio 2 show from Wednesday (as it had Phil Jupitus on it).
The game was reluctant at first... it really didn't want me to have another trial (I originally played the trial when I first got my new laptop, to ensure it all worked) but... I've dealt with that. I've also installed Sparky's huge mod pack which fixes any number of things.
To get you in the mood, here's the Not The Nine O'Clock lads singing about how much like trucking too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9lmCpIzhFo(Rowan Atkinson has an HGV licence)
Onwards!
Unlike 18WoS, you don't start as an owner-operator here... you're hired by a haulier to drive one of their company trucks doing what you're told because you're their BITCH.
Dear Jesus... it truly is Parallel Universe Perkies, and in this universe, he wears a shirt, at least.
Here's the map. Don't be fooled by the detail at this early stage.
Onwards to Plymouth with my iron pipes!
The poor Ferrari seems to have been rearended by an doctor's car.
As I drive cross country from Sheffield to Birminghan to join the M5, I check out the awesome DukesOfHazzard-o-Cam.
Rock or hard place?
Joining the M6 just outside Brummieham.
It looks almost authentic, doesn't it?
I mean look, the sign gantries are pretty realistic, right?
Ah. This is where the M6 and the M5 meet in the middle of Birmingham.
Going into 'Frankley Services' just south of Birmingham on the M5.
'Frankley', the gungy Murco station near my house in Caerphilly is bigger than this.
Fill her up! It's a long way to Plymouth, so I top the tank up.
Back on the motorway, things are still looking pretty good. I've got plenty of time to get to Plymouth.
The famous and well-known M5 tunnels near Worcester?
(some time later) Sell-out!
I've arrived in the vast pine forests of Devon!
I was wondering when this would happen. To quickly explain the HUD, the top left shows my orders - go to the Stoke warehouse in Plymouth with these pipes by 22:02 Monday... the little progress bar shows how near that deadline I am. To the right is my bank balance, my tiredness (the lidded eye), damage and clock.
This is a road sign you see ALL THE TIME in Britain. (it's a European sign meaning 'a zone of absolute priority' and any vehicles on sideroads joining the main road you're on will have to stop for you)
My destination, at last. The truck is quite nimble and I easily swing the trailer around and back it into the bay.
There's a fairly detailed evaluation screen upon making your delivery. There's even a levelling system!
More pipes? So you had pipes here all this time, had me come all the way from Sheffield, and are now sending these to Felixstowe??
Yes, the pipes do appear to be identical.
A roundabout!
I get a weird email from... myself? You'd think the game could at least detect I entered my name as Steve and change it to something else!
I drive over to the nearby garage, hoping to upgrade my truck (as in 18WoS, it's unbelievably shit and is struggling to stay much above 40mph). No dice... this is a company truck, I can't do anything.
A loud bang is heard from my GPS as it tries to calculate a route based on this information.
My company is too cheap to give me a truck with a sleeper, so I'm forced to sprawl across the seat here for the night, a pillow made from Yorkie wrappers, The Daily Sport for a blanket.
Next morning, and realistic weather finally arrives.
This is the junction of the M4 and the M5. Compare (below) with the real thing.
Leigh Delamere services are shit, but not THIS shit!
This is just like the real M4 near Swindon... the winding road, exposed rock and yet another sunflower farm.
When it wants to, the game can look very smart.
I'll keep my eyes open for a windmill in Slough the next time I drive to London.
Here we go... where the M4 meets the M25. Notice the densely populated suburbs.
The junction itself. Note the minimap - the M4 ends here, the only way into 'London' is from the north.
At least this part of the M25 is somewhat realistic.
Much later, I pass one of the landslide protectors you see everywhere on the sides of mountains in East Angular.
Finally entering Felixstowe. Every other truck I've encountered has gone flying past me at a high rate of speed.
Hello darkness, my old friend.
Fighting through several dozing screens, I reach my destination and deliver my iron pipes. I receive payment and new instructions, along with a new cargo.
Yes, more iron bloody pipes, to Sheffield no less. Modern British management slider must be set to 100% realism, I've driven around the country over the course of two days for absolutely no reason. Dismayed, I decide to pull into the nearby Premier Inn and get bollocksed at the bar.
In the pub, I get more emails... one offering a job with a rival haulage company, another from not-me, suggesting I become independent. I'd love to. I hate to think how many iron pipes I'll have to shift around to swap with other iron pipes before I can afford my own truck.
I lay my head in a beery pool on the table and go to sleep.
There you have it.
What strikes you first of all is how much more advanced the engine is over the 18WoS games. It's sharper, more fluid, more smooth, a real leap forward. Even the truck physics seem better, and less sluggish. There's also a fair bit more depth to the actual career you're building for yourself, though all this employee business is both an extended tutorial and an unfortunate restriction. I'm clamouring to go buy a Scania V8 and visit Cardiff.
The police... apart from that ambulance, and the odd police car going past on the motorway, I haven't seen them. Being modern Britain, of course, doing anything wrong and they've got a camera to take a picture of you doing it and you're fined instantly. The fatigue system gives you quite a lot of warning before you start dozing, too, which is very welcome.
However, the game itself feels really cheap. The credits credit (ahem) a dozen Czech guys, and it really shows. It doesn't feel like the UK so much as it does Europe... which isn't really surprising, given this is little more than a new map for the Euro Truck simulator. All the motorways look the same, all the motorway junctions look the same, and they've just slotted stuff together into a rough approximation of the UK. The road layouts themselves are all wrong, and the tiny 'cities' (especially London, which feels extremely wrong) are a holdover from truck games a decade ago.
It just doesn't feel right somehow... like I said in the 18WoS thread, it's like the uncanny valley. It should be driving through the Southwest, but it's not. It feels more like rural mainline Europe. The experience system and emails just can't compete for the atmosphere created by the US border crossings, weigh stations and CB radios of the big US trucks, and I wonder if it'll hold my interest long enough to even earn my independence from the iron pipe relocation company.
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