Fans who have been salivating for a trucker sim are likely to be disappointed.

Developing 'niche' games can't be easy. It's a calculated gamble that a software company has to make, with the potential for huge sales ("Deer Hunter") or embarrassing failure ("Innova Disc Golf"). Whatever the results, I have a certain respect for games that have strictly defined appeal, if only because they represent attempts to break new ground in computer gaming. In an industry saturated with tired FPSs and run-of-the-mill real-time strategy ordeals, anything that is a breath of fresh air is, well, exactly that.

So I was ready to give Hard Truck 2 the benefit of the doubt right out of the box. In this game, players assume the role of a long-haul semi driver, carting deliveries around the countryside in competition with computer-controlled drivers. As you race against deadlines to make your deliveries, you'll tangle with the cops, engage in races for big prizes, and upgrade your truck. Whoever ultimately controls 51% of the business in this imaginary world wins the game.

It's not a bad concept, and certainly one that we haven't seen before. I wanted to like this game, and there were quite a few things about Hard Truck 2 that I did like. Unfortunately, they were outnumbered by the things that I didn't.

Graphically, Hard Truck 2 looks pretty sharp. As you motor around the countryside in your big rig, the sky changes from day to night, the weather turns to rain on the windshield, and the terrain looks sufficiently realistic, with nice landscape textures. Most of the controls that you would find on the dash of a truck can be controlled on the keyboard, including a horn, headlights (high and low-beam - nice touch), and even wipers, which, in another dash of realism, don't seem to do too much.

I found the controls to be a pretty good simulation of real truck driving, in that they were horrible. A nudge too far in one direction, and the whole truck fishtails off to the side. I found steering brought an undeniable sensation of weight to my driving. After screaming through my last driving sim at an average of 105 mph or so, it was undeniably refreshing to drive a vehicle where average speed is usually around 35 mph. I liked the feeling that when I got up to 50 mph or so, man, I was moving. That probably wasn't easy for the programmers to accurately emulate, and they deserve credit for it.

All this realism has a serious downside, however: Driving a delivery truck isn't much fun. Many of your deliveries will take up to a half-hour of real-time driving. At 35 mph. After slogging up and down hills, back and forth across fields, up the mountain, down the mountain, I realized that truck driving isn't nearly as romantic as it's sometimes portrayed to be. The bottom line is that it's a job, and not all jobs are fun to play as a game. As I reviewed this game over the course of a week, I'd sit down at the computer and realize that although I had to play the game, I really didn't want to 'go to work'. Not a good sign.

The developers must have anticipated this, because they've introduced some wrinkles into the everyday grind, most of which don't work very well. For example, on your first delivery, regardless of which way you drive, you'll go maybe a half-mile before encountering a string of land mines across the road. These, I discovered, are relatively common phenomena across the county. It seems the Mafia is intent on waylaying truckers, you see. If you skirt the land mines (by leaving the asphalt to go 'off-road' in your 18-wheeler), often the Mafia will come after you in a black Land Rover, firing machine guns and demolishing your truck and cargo. Pull over for them, and they'll just rob you blind.

You'd think the cops would do something about this, but they're too busy pulling you over for reckless driving. If they spot you driving too fast or hitting another car, they'll ring you up for a stiff fine. Despite the fact that oncoming truckers will swerve into your lane to collide with you and send you off the road, invariably I was the one who got busted. Needless to say, this becomes tiresome after a while. Oh yeah, if you refuse to pull over for the police, they also will open fire on you (much like the Mafia, actually) and destroy your vehicle. We all know how often this sort of thing occurs on the open road.

I don't have a problem per se with this added excitement, but you'd think a trucker driving in Mafia territory would carry some kind of protection, even just a sidearm or something. But of course, that wouldn't be realistic; delivery drivers don't pack pieces, do they? This is Hard Truck 2's fundamental flaw: it can't decide what kind of game it wants to be. I appreciate SoftLab's intentions here, but get the feeling they got into this project and then tried to spice it with incongruous elements without examining the effects they'd have on game balance. One of the upgrades you can purchase for your rig is a bulletproof windshield and chassis to safeguard against police and Mafia attacks. I had an idea for a different safeguard, called an Uzi, but this purchase was not available at the repair station.

The damage modelling is disappointing. When you get a good head of steam going down a hill and see a puny little Mafia Land Rover waiting for you in a pathetic roadblock, you grin a little. That's one of the things Hard Truck 2 gets right: the feeling that once you get rolling, not much is going to slow you down. But bash a car, a tree, any obstacle, and you get the same sound, and virtually no damage. This is anticlimactic to say the least. I rammed my truck into a building at 60 mph, with no visible damage to either the building or my truck. I did, however, witness two cop cars crash directly into each other at full speed, with some impressive damage effects, although the damage done to my appraisal of the enemy AI was much worse.

Hard Truck 2 further suffers from iffy documentation, not enough graphics options, and an interface that gives you no way to quit the program (other than Ctrl-Alt-Del) that I could find. The music is a plus, though, a kind of Iron Maidenish rock that changes with the time of day and lends the game a sufficiently macho vibe. There is no option to play your own music, rendering unusable the Willie Nelson MP3s I had meticulously compiled for my journey. Another gripe: the rear-view mirrors are ridiculously small and utterly useless, making every turn or reverse maneuver an adventure. Actually, you can switch between 1st and 3rd person views, but the sensation of driving is so much stronger in 1st-person that I found myself cutting wide turns cross country, or just plowing backwards into anybody behind me, rather than switching views.

Still, the game has its moments. I was undeniably soothed at points, lulled by the rain on the windshield, the lightning crackling on the hills, the slow guitars in the background. That is, until I hit a land mine, rendering my cargo unsellable and the whole trip a waste of 20 minutes. There's a game in here somewhere, I'm convinced, and there's an audience for it, too. But this isn't the game, and fans who have been salivating for a trucker sim are likely to be disappointed.

Reviewed by Dan Watson, PC Gameworld.