There are car games, and then there are role-playing games. It’s rare that the two meet in the middle. If Hard Truck: Apocalypse is anything to go by, perhaps that’s for the best. RPGs are typically made or broken based on the quality of their story, the charm of their characters, and the challenge of their missions. This game, while it has its moments, is sadly lacking in all three departments.

Apocalypse Soon

It’s a bleak place, the future…at least it is if you put stock in the version depicted here. Not only has the air been poisoned, forcing people everywhere to wear garish masks or die a painful death, but on top of that everyone seems to make their money by driving agonizingly slow trucks across the barren and wrecked landscape.

In the apocalyptic future society has more or less dissolved leaving everyone to drive around Mad Max-style, trading goods, providing services, and blowing up the odd bandit. You get thrown into this world as a young boy who quickly comes of age when he discovers his father has been slain. It’s up to you to roam across the land in a rusty old jalopy to hunt down and eliminate those responsible.

That may sound like a solid enough vision for a game, but the execution is terrible. You wind up meandering around from dumpy village to dumpy village, each separated by miles and miles of dull and featureless terrain, all the while getting jumped by ruffians and misfits in similarly chunky looking vehicles. Each new town brings a string of new faceless characters, each with some menial task to complete, and each with some new lead. Inevitably that new lead is in some town that’s on the other side of the map. The game was obviously structured to force you to cross as much ground as possible, which gets thoroughly boring.

Pimp My Warwagon

The truck upgrading and the subsequent combat are about the only areas of the game that provide some real interest. That well-worn jalopy you start with can be upgraded or completely replaced with other vehicles offering extra armor and more speed along with more and better weapons. The wimpy machine gun you start with is reliable but far from deadly. You’ll earn upgrades by completing missions and earning cash, or by defeating enemies and stealing their stuff.

Most often, though, the enemies you face are using vastly low-grade weapons that aren’t worth much anyway. Meanwhile the really good stuff in the stores is priced way out of your reach. You’ll need to spend hours and hours running boring jobs to earn enough cash to get yourself a decent ride. Ultimately, the quality of your hardware isn’t a big deal, thanks to some very bad AI.

The friendly trucks you’ll come across in the game are always good for a laugh. They meander drunkenly across the terrain, swinging left and right, accidentally driving into a pole or bouncing off of a rock. The enemy drivers are no better. They’ll come charging right at you guns a blazing, then just stop and sit there while you run circles around them, blowing them to bits. Better guns will end these battles more quickly, but given the level of the opposition, being outgunned it’s usually not a problem.

Bleak Future

While you wouldn’t expect an apocalyptic future to be colorful and beautiful, you’d expect it to be at least…interesting, no? Unfortunately all you get to see here are rolling hills, the occasional lake, a couple of mountains, and more rolling hills. It’s rare that you come across anything worth looking at. The water effects are nice, but what game doesn’t have nice water effects these days?

Audio is similarly lackluster. The soundtrack is comprised almost entirely of one oddly catchy but endlessly repeated track that sounds something like an apocalyptic honky tonk ditty. There are a few other tunes spread around, but it’s the dialog you’ll notice most. It’s hard to tell whether the voice acting is good or bad given the stupid things people say here. The main character is particularly guilty of chanting some random bit of nonsensical text when charging into battle, a particularly annoying trait.

A Bad Mix

While Auto Assault has had some measure of success blending cars and RPG elements, Hard Truck fails. The vast world with bandits and weapon-packed vehicles is an interesting idea, but being forced to meander back and forth across it just to earn a few scraps of cash makes the whole thing boring. Boring isn’t a word often associated with good games. 

Article by: Tim Stevens
Video produced by: Jonathan Solin