To start with, the game actually has a story. Yes, it's not a usual boring championship sim - there's a background to it - check out Cruze's great summary of it below. The idea is that you not only race your truck, but use it to carry goods around - and get rewarded for that. More, you can upgrade your car with the money you receive - and although there are no weapons, just about anything else is available. The idea is reminiscent of the classics like Elite, Death Track or Privateer - and, although the game isn't precisely the same caliber, it's still quite fun. Goods available to carry around include the most varied mix, from cottons, fabrics and Pentium processors to champagne and the ubiquitous vodka. A neat feature of the game which I haven't seen in others is the fragility factor - for example, if you're carrying fabrics, you can go on a bulldozer rampage, hitting your opponents as hard as you want - but if you load up on vodka, watch out - any hard hit on the truck is bound to destroy a percentage of your cargo, thereby decreasing your bounty at the end.

Since I mentioned inflicting damage on trucks, I should mention the visual part of it. Car damage is modeled pretty well, and differs depending where you hit the truck - 11 o'clock breaks a headlight, 12 might rip off your hood (or, depending on the strength, damage your engine), 7 o'clock might break your taillights, and so forth. However, I haven't seen side damage, which therefore leads me to assume only front and aft damage is modeled, every other kind is pretty much ignored. Other visual effects include smoke, fog, exhaust, atmospheric effects, skid marks, and even particle effects demonstrating grass expelled from under the wheels when the driver thinks he's driving a lawnmower. The only problem with all of those effects is, they don't feel like they're bound to the object - they rather feel like a transparent bitmap animation that's mapped onto the general area where the action happens. For example, exhaust doesn't gradually appear from the exhaust pipe - it just appears as a black cloud which drifts back fast, and you have to assume it came from your exhaust pipe. The grass sprayed from under the wheels is a bit better, but the smoke from braking or skidding is just about as bad. The water on the windshield is probably the coolest effect I've ever seen, though - when you drive in adverse conditions (only rain, unfortunately - no snow, drizzle, hale, meteor showers, or acid rain) the water stays on the windshield, gradually obstructing visibility, until the wipers are turned on. When they are, they remove water from their area of effect, leaving it outside the radius of effect - thereby giving a very natural feel of the windshield wipers. Last wipers I remember were in Test Drive 3, and the effect was similar, albeit not nearly as good. Other effects are pretty average - the lightning for instance. Actually the lightning is way below average - it just sucks. But at least you don't see it too often. And there are some clipping problems - some less severe, some a lot more severe. You can see some in the screenshots, where, at some point, you can see the truck through a cliff; at another time, you see a truck's wheels half-embedded into the ground. Unfortunate, but nonetheless there.

The truck dynamics are pretty good. It will skid if the radius of curvature of a turn is too high, or if you're moving too fast, or if you can't use your brakes properly. It skids more on grass than on asphalt, too. The neat part is that other drivers skid too - and not only that, they screw up hairpin turns and run into walls, as well. They also fight among themselves, unlike in other games where you're one against the world. They will go for you, though, if you're within reach - they'll try to run you off the road with minimal damage to themselves. You can have from one to eight opponents, either single-player, or multi - the idea remains the same: grab the goods, and make it to the finish line. A useful feature is repairing on the fly - a la Carmageddon. It doesn't repair brake wear or tire wear, though - those have to be fixed at the base. Slightly annoying is the damage factor: as you incur more damage, you go slower. I damaged my wheels at some point in such a way as to cause permanent damage to directional control, but, unfortunately, the most common effect is a simple slowdown. Also, the only components of the car that actually wear out are brakes and tires - items such as, say, shocks or steering components can't be damaged - they go into the third category, dubbed 'truck'.

Like I mentioned before, you have a choice of a few tracks to race on. That is, there's one that's a pure race, one that seems to me an Enduro-type race which I miserably failed on every time I tried, and four 'get the goods to the boss' type of tracks. Very cool is the fact that on the cargo races you can almost always take more than one route to get to your objective - some shorter, some longer, some loaded with a bunch of crazy 10+ toners trying to have you level every single streetlight, and other ways with no one but you and the quiet rain drops echoing on your windshield. The graphics on each of the tracks are decent, but I'm not completely sure for what reason the game uses my 3Dfx card. The terrain looks high-color only upon a close examination, it looks pretty pixelated otherwise, and the only objects that the eye gracefully rests upon are trucks themselves, and, of course, the Coca-Cola booths. The trucks are pretty well-modeled, with sponsors' badges, and colorful paint schemes. Unfortunately, the outside view doesn't take into account windshield wipers - whether you turn them on or off doesn't make much of a difference. The background pictures are usually pretty nice - albeit, again, low-res. And I wonder why the game slows down at some points? Doesn't look like there are that many polygons to process... Oh, and on a completely different topic, the parking brake is made interesting use of - rather, it's completely useless. It is, however, used in its proper fashion - when you hit the parking brake key, it comes ON. And the car stops. And stays there. I haven't managed to make use of it the way most today's games make use of it - as a substitute to a heavy-duty boot in the old cars. Fine, that analogy sucks. But the point is, you can't use the parking brake to skid in this game - so I'm not sure what its use is. Maybe to park the truck and hold it in place? Could be.

The orchestral theme for the game is pretty good. That is, there is no orchestral theme - but the sounds are pretty good. Skidding sounds, the thuds of someone breaking your vodka shipment, glass breaking (though you don't SEE glass breaking), and the metal grind of you going square into a cement wall - everything's there. The engine noise is good, too - it's (should I sound that impressed, though?) actually different for all trucks. And the interiors of all the trucks are different, too - Volvo, Zil, IVECO, Mack, Scania, Kamaz, Kenworth trucks are present in the game. Interesting is something I've long longed for in a game - when you turn, your point of view moves slightly, and the truck tilts visually - a completely natural occurrence, but completely omitted from games these days. Moreover, you can actually look around the cabin - in the left window, or the right window. The neat thing is, it doesn't screw up like, say, Rainbow 6 did - you could actually cheat and try to look at objects with the corner of your eye - they got brightened and zoomed a slight bit. Worked really well, especially to avoid blind fire into an alley which you can't see (turned into blind fire into an alley that you can't see but you know is there).

Some unfortunate lowdowns (and I know some of you might disagree with me here). For one, there are no parked cars. Don't you think it's cool when you park your Jag Sovereign outside for a change, and a crazy trucker plows into it at night? Or pedestrians: there are none in the game. But, I suppose, this isn't Carmageddon (I hear in 2 there -will- be a truck to inflict havoc on unsuspecting pedestrians, so I suppose I can wait). There's no usual Sunday traffic, either - the cities look pretty dead and daunted without it. And headlights are weird - although the company claims that 'road lighted by headlights', I neither found a way to turn them on, nor did they turn on automatically. Good thing I wasn't smuggling vodka.

Overall, Hard Truck is a pretty decent game, though not up to par with the likes of Vangers and Rage of Mages. The engine is a slight bit dated, but, on the other hand, statistics have to be faced: considering how long (NOT long, if you don't know) Russia has been in the whole game development business, it's impressive that most of their titles are that good. Sure, the engine of Hard Truck is a bit shabby - but it's enjoyable, with an original concept, and lo! - it's not a first person shooter OR a real-time strategy game, of which our American comrades have pumped out zillions. At least the tidal wave died out a bit. I have a feeling a Tomb Raider wave is close nearby. I even saw shots from one game, everything up to the main character being an, ahem, female of noticeable dimensions. Originality? Sorry, come back in a bit. Either way (to return to my wrapping-up comment on Hard Truck), even though the engine is somewhat decrepit, and the translation didn't sound like it was done by anyone even remotely as qualified as the Vangers people, the game is still fun. (Incidentally, when I went to SoftLab's [the developer's] site, I was so impressed with their English that I thought I was on the wrong site for a while. What happened with the game's translation?]. Either way... you might wish to check it out if you like original, fun games. I suppose there's a certain limit of the replay value of Hard Truck... but I haven't reached it yet.

Highs: Original concept (I keep on saying this, for this game, RoM, Vangers), fun gameplay, great physics, damage is well-modeled.

Lows: Graphics engine is a bit antiquated, terrain is somewhat boring, especially the race tracks - all that's there are Coke booths (which is fine), and Esso booths - but that's about it. Well, except for the occasional houses and skyscrapers and buildings that remind me a lot of my old high school Brr.

Overall: a fun game, which may not appeal to some who are in search of something that'll make their hardware seem old and useless (try Trespasser). You may wish to check it out otherwise.

Graphics: 15/20

Sound: 11/15

Gameplay: 20/30

Fun Factor: 17/20

Multi-Player: 3/5

Overall Impression: 7/10

Tested on: Intel P200 / 64MB RAM / 3D accel + Monster 1 - 3Dfx / SB32

WOW, quite a mouthful, and that's only half the storyline. It seems Buka has gone to quite some trouble to provide the background for their latest hard drivin', tire squealin' arcade/simulator release. Check out the website for more details, but basically, the storyline for hard-truck boils down to 'whoever can deliver the good first gets the most cash'. You are a truck driver, hopefully one of the best, who has received some backing from investors to try and get some goods into the stranded villages mining the precious energy 'BFD'. Needless to say, the sooner you can get your goods to the villages, the more profitable your venture as the needy citizens fork over their precious ore for the daily essentials like food and water. (Oh, and Pentium II processors are available to haul too, but MAN are they expensive.) Not so hard you say? Well obviously the lure of easy money has brought other investors and they have their own drivers trying to be the first to deliver their goods to the markets. Drivers that, although they don't carry .45's, are not above running you right into the side of a mountain to keep you from beating them to Serbick.

Hard Truck is self-dubbed tractor trailer 'arcade/simulator'. The user has the option of first person or 'chase' views for hauling his rig on its speedy delivery route. Additional features such as 'in-cab monitors' allow you to also turn on mini windows to track various other views of the rig so that you can keep tabs on any nagging competitors or overly aggressive road warriors trying to remove you from the scene. By making fast and safe (not bashing the goods to pieces) deliveries, you accumulate cash which can then be re-spent on stocking up with more products for the next haul or purchasing add-ons and powerups for your rig. The hauls are done in stages on your route to Serbick, each stage allows you to drop off and pick up goods for the next stage. Be careful not to spend all your money though, because, guaranteed, you will need some for 'on the road repairs' as the computer controlled rigs battle you for that coveted first shot at the next delivery.

Graphics: 14/20

Hard Truck - Road to Victory uses a fairly simplistic graphics engine, but does support hardware acceleration. On my first go 'round with HT, the game didn't detect my hardware and the results were frightening. Early 90's graphics that barely ran, chunking through at 9 fps with terribly fuzzy details and pixelization. One word, Yuck. Once I figured out the accelerator configuration, the HT interface became reasonably smooth and far more desirable to look at. the frame rate did compromise on me again when I had 3 trucks on screen bashing each other around for road position, but other than that it was smooth sailing.

Almost nothing, aside from the odd light pole and mailbox, is available in the game in the way of environmental objects for you to 'inter-act' with, and the overall graphical fair is pretty ho-hum for most of the game. Scenery includes buildings for the city areas, trees for the 'between cities' areas (I swear they only drew 1 tree and used it for every piece of foliage in the entire game) and mountains for, you guessed it, mountain areas. I can not stress enough that if you do not have a 3Dfx accelerator card, proceed with caution. Without it the graphics in HT go from somewhat mediocre to downright scary. Consider yourself warned.

Sound: 11/15

At first, the audio effects in Hard Truck were quite appealing, especially the rain and water sounds. Unfortunately the monotony of a constant patter of rain just didn't enthrall me, and after a while I found most of the sounds in the game just too repetitive. (e.g.: shifting gears every 5 seconds, same squeal of the tires, same pelting of rain even inside tunnels) What sounds there are in the game are done very well, but a little audio diversity would have gone a long way to helping the entertainment value of this release.

Gameplay: 18/30

Think of this game as a tractor-trailer rally race over a diverse range of terrain, each requiring their own particular style of driving. Control is handled via keyboard or joystick, (although if using joystick you will find there is still a need to use allot of stuff from the keyboard) and the truck can be driven in either automatic or standard transmission configuration. Each level is started by driving your truck through various staging areas where you can load up on goods, buy new parts and features for your rig or purchase an entirely new rig. Of course all this costs money, but I found that I always had enough money to buy the stuff I wanted.

As you race against the computer controlled rigs in Hard Truck, you come to see very quickly that they have little regard for their own safety as long as they can jeopardize yours. Each level, or rally, has several possible routes to the finish, each one different enough that it requires a different style of driving and will provide you with different hazards along the way. This not only adds replay value, but gives you a chance to get away from your nemesis road-hogs when traffic gets a little congested.

A couple of noteworthy bugs have to be mentioned in the game as they were pretty glaring after the first half hour. Road signs, although not big enough for you to read, inflict incredible amounts of damage to your rig, sometimes even crippling it completely. So don't take your usual, monster-truck-madness casual style of dealing with them as a single one can cost you the game. An unfortunate amount of clipping problems still exist in the retail version of Hard-Truck which don't really detract from the playability of the game, but made for some interesting surprises as I was off driving into things and suddenly found myself tumbling through a great void spinning away into nothingness.

Fun Factor: 15/20

For whatever reason, HT does begin to grow on you. Whether it's just for the sense of power at having an 8 ton truck under your feet, or the completely different feel of racing around in a semi-rig, I didn't get bored trying out the different combinations of truck / terrain / rig-enhancements. What was the most fun you ask? I'd have to say getting in front of the pack, slamming on the old parking brake and watching the fleet of big-rigs scatter off into the ditches, piling into each other like a trainwreck.

Multi-Player: 2/5

Multiplayer for HT - Road to Victory comes in the form of Direct play drivers. Modem, serial, IPX and TCP for internet are all on the Multiplay menu. Unfortunately, after play-testing over a high-speed digital internet connection (just to clarify for all of those people who are of the impression that 56k is high speed, I say 'digital' to imply 'T1') I have to say that the lag encountered on the network multiplay rendered the game completely unplayable in this form.

Overall Impression: 6/10

The interesting dynamics of a big-rig truck and over-aggressive AI opponents help to make Hard Truck a refreshing change to the standard racing sims of today's PC entertainment market.

Highs: Ultra nasty opponents who do their best to make your life miserable, a wide variety of driving conditions and the challenging physics of maneuvering a semi-rig at speeds in excess of 90 Mph would be some of the strong points of the game.

Lows: A somewhat dated graphics engine (although it does support 3D acceleration) and the lack of 'interaction' with your environment. (i.e. not much in the way of inanimate objects or pedestrians or even any other traffic)

Bottom Line: Unless you think you'd make a good hardcore truck driver and just have to get this game, I'd have to say give it a pass.

Tested on: Intel P200 MMX / 64MB RAM / 3D accel + Monster 1 - 3Dfx / SB16