A thoroughly tedious, yet, lighthearted idea that is severely impaired by an awful engine, narrow scope, and insufficient development.
Positive:
- The premise is, albeit superficially, charming and endearing. The driving has a purpose and the brief glimpse at a deeper story is amusing.
Neutral:
- Although there are not many tracks, the synthwave music included with the game complements the concept and atmosphere. One's own personal collection of music could be played from the car stereo in the game, too. Unfortunately, track progression is not automatic and requires a manual transition.
- While the controls are very basic and sparse, there are some elements of the gameplay that are not explained, at all. This lack of instruction and obtuse ambiguity create an initially confusing experience.
- Audio effects are minimal and inadequate. Cars, trucks, and motorcycles don't really make mechanical sounds, rain and thunder are noiseless, and crashes are totally muted.
- Aside from the occasional downpour, there are no random events whatsoever. Other drivers do not demonstrate unusual behaviors and they do not exhibit any signs of artificial intelligence. They simply drive on a rail, as if nothing else exists around them.
Negative:
- There is no save system. The trip must be made in one sitting, which takes close to one hour to complete, if successful. Crashing means starting over from the beginning, as there are no checkpoints, either.
- Collision detection is unpredictable at best, and erratic at worst. One's driving skills are irrelevant because calculating safe distances between other vehicles is practically useless.
- Driving controls are generally slow and unresponsive. This has nothing to do with a pretended simulation aspect, since navigating the menus produces the same laggardly effects.
- Everything in the game takes far too long to load. Death scenes, going back to the main menu, and restarting the trip take many seconds, when it should be as close to instant as possible.
- The frame rate is locked at 30 per second during trips, and going between menu screens can even go down to single digits.
- Taking advantage of the windshield wiper and wiper fluid while driving on the shoulder is an approach that almost completely eliminates reflexive challenges, rendering the main road to be utterly pointless.
- All aspects of the vehicular maneuvering mechanics are limited, dull, and boring. There are no curves and there are no scenery changes. One only drives straight and avoids traffic.
- Alt-Tabbing out of the game while paused may inadvertently crash the playable vehicle. There is nothing that could be done to avoid this situation.
Overall rating: 2.0/5.0
