As someone who loves the Truck Simulator games by SCS (mostly American Truck Simulator) I’ve been curious about Truck Driver on consoles. The game was released last Fall on the Xbox One and PS4 (Switch and Steam releases are coming this year) developed and published by SOEDESCO. I rented it via GameFly just to see what it would be like, and I’m glad I didn’t get suckered into buying it (it goes for $39.99 on Xbox).
Right off the bat the game looks and feels like a budget game. The interface isn’t great, and the menus give the impression that it’s a mobile game. The intro to the game was even worse. You’re greeted with a slow moving text conversation that’s meant to be a tutorial. This all would have been easy to look past if the driving turned out to be good. Spoiler alert, it’s terrible. There’s no weight to the driving at all. It feels very slippery and loose, almost like you’re controlling a camera floating above the road rather than a truck. In American Truck Simulator you can feel the weight of the trucks, and it takes time to get up to speed while hauling a trailer. In Truck Driver hauling a trailer feels no different than driving without one.
One of the things I like about the SCS games is observing the scenery while driving. While the games aren’t one to one representations of the real world, they feel close enough, especially as someone who lives in the Pacific Northwest.
The driving felt so bad right off the bat that I couldn’t bear to drive like I would in real life. I quickly found out there are no penalties for speeding (though I’m not even sure I saw a speed limit sign), driving on the wrong side of the road, or even barreling into other cars (though your truck can sustain damage).
I only managed to play for about twenty minutes before I couldn’t bear it any longer. It’s possible that my impressions of this game are tainted with the countless hours I’ve spent in the SCS games, but I can’t imagine that this game would feel great even as someone’s first truck simulator game. Heck, I’d bet if you’ve played any driving game in the last ten years you’d instantly be put off by how bad the driving feels in this game.
I’ve included a video of my first twenty minutes with Truck Simulator if you want to get an idea of what the experience is like. You’ll notice I drive poorly, but to be honest the game felt so bad I didn’t care to even try to play it as a simulation.
For reference I’ve included video of me playing American Truck Simulator, a much more enjoyable game. If you only have consoles, then you really don’t have any other choices for a truck driving game, but for $40 I wouldn’t recommend this game even if you were desperate. I probably wouldn’t touch it even if it were under $10, it’s just a bad game. Do yourself a favor and stay far away from it!
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