Picking random games that you can’t find out much about can be a blessing and a curse. I continue to play buyer’s roulette because I find so many gems, but occasionally I unearth a true miss, and sadly, Truckzilla is one of the biggest.
Truckzilla is a game that is split into two distinctive halves, and aside from the monster trucks you unlock, the two sides never cross over. They also aren’t created equally in terms of scope, fun, or variation. I recommend you start out with the better arena mode first and foremost. In this mode, you’ll be placed inside extremely bare bones arenas with pits, jumps, half pipe curves, and a few balance areas to collect various crystals dotted around the arena. The time limit you are given early on is extremely generous, but it gets a little tighter later on. It only gets tight when you come across a crystal that is placed at a slightly awkward angle or height, requiring some stunt launching off a ramp to collect it.
Whilst the controls aren’t the absolute worst I’ve experienced, it’s a step down from most monster truck games I’ve played previously. There is a choppiness to the movement, probably because the framerate seems to struggle, but it translates to feeling like the truck is never truly on the ground. The truck instead floats like a cloud and flollops on landing like a walrus belly flopping into snow. It is a real struggle, and as you unlock “better” trucks by completing arenas and gaining cash, you’ll have trucks with better top speed, but not always better handling, so mix and match to suit your style.
Don’t mix and match top speed out of your requirements too much, though, because the second half of the game is a stunt ramp jumping game. After 30 arenas, you’ll want to tackle the 30 jumps, and as the caverns you need to cross get wider and wider, that means you’ll need more grunt and engine power to fly over them. It’s here where the choppy, imprecise, laggy steering damages the gameplay most. Jumps have increasingly more convoluted run-ups, like driving up inside a tilted ship or plane, and if you aren’t at full throttle, you won’t make the jump. It’s a shame, then, that the ragged terrain will bobble your truck into a judder that means you’ll clip the side walls or miss an incredibly narrow wooden plank, before tumbling to your doom. Very rarely did I think I was at fault. It was usually that the game just can’t cope with going flat out and trying to steer at the same time. Whilst the basic destruction physics of the truck amuse you the first few times, it quickly turns into a painful, frustrating, and unhinged experience.
Watch as your truck falls through the floor, gets caught on an invisible wall, tumbles through the game over zone, only to be declared a victory, or in one case, launch into the sky and not come back down again. The ramp mode is littered with tons of bugs, and I couldn’t replicate them in the arena mode. What’s worse is that the prize payouts are measly and do not keep up with the costs of better trucks, so you’ll run into progression barriers that require you to replay previous jumps or arenas over and over to get a powerful truck to tackle the next jump. All this makes the pain worse. I gave up after completing all arenas and about 2/3rds of the jumps. It was getting unhealthy.
I cannot recommend this bug-ridden slop to anyone. It isn’t fun. It barely runs. Whilst the arena mode is functional, almost every other monster truck stunt arena game does it better. Even the promotional material shows multiple trucks and details in the graphics that do not exist. Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.
Higher Plain Games is part of the Higher Plain Network. If you like what I do, please consider supporting me via Patreon for as little as $1/£1 a month. There are additional perks for supporting me, such as behind-the-scenes content and downloads. You can also share the website or use the affiliate buy now links on reviews. Buying credit from CD Keys using my affiliate link means I get a couple of pence per sale. All your support will enable me to produce better content, more often. Thank you.
