Eighteen Wheeler: American Pro Trucker (PS2 Review)

Once upon a time, video game arcades covered the land from sea to shining sea in every available space. Whether it was in a shopping mall, pizza parlor or even your favorite corner convenience store, arcade game cabinets could be found everywhere. What drew the never-ending flow of quarters was simply the fact that home gaming platforms just couldn’t compete with the video output and action of their arcade brethren. However, once the 32-bit gaming machines started appearing in living rooms across the planet gamers began to stay home for their enjoyment and fewer and fewer arcade games were created. 

 

Even in this day and age of the home gaming system. game makers have continued to eek out a meager stream of arcade titles, continuing even today. However, the flow of the river has somewhat reversed upon itself. Now, most of the big games are first being released on a home platform and then translated to the arcade, or developers are using this medium to test out new game engines for future renditions, which of course will be tweaked and tuned for home consummation.

During this most recent time, Sega has been one of the biggest players in the arcade. Probably one of their biggest hits would have to be Crazy Taxi, however they’ve had numerous other titles enter into top-seller status. One of these would be Eighteen Wheeler, where gamers got the opportunity to get behind the big wheel and compete in delivering various loads across North America, all the while racing the clock. Now, perhaps if this title had come to fruition in the era of the NES instead of the PlayStation, its place in history might be more well defined instead of just being a footnote. Nevertheless, this title has made it’s way to a home version and we all have the opportunity to give it a run. Does Eighteen Wheeler deliver the goods on time, or does it fall a few miles short of its destination? That’s what we are about to find out. It’s time to shift into the high gears and take this baby for a ride.

Unfortunately, every video game has both it’s good and bad sides. Sometimes the bad outweighs the good, but usually there is enough silver lining the dark clouds to make the game at least palatable. Eighteen Wheeler: American Pro Trucker (EW:APT) is no exception. Personally, I like to get the bad news out in the open first, so lets take a look a the one glaring problem facing this title. Since this is a direct port from an arcade game, lack of depth and overall length is the big negative issue.

Since most quarter-munchers are designed with a high difficulty to keep the inflow of cash coming and short bursts of gaming between checkpoints to give the player a sense of accomplishment, EW: APT really lacks in the shelf-life department. With five different levels of difficulty selectable, gamers can tone down the frustration factor of racing a too short clock, but only having four stages of competition can allow gamers to complete the entire arcade section is about an hour.

Another issue is the rather meager selection of trucks and trailers available. Players can choose between just four different tractors and eventually seven different trailers for the complete game. There is no customization available and the only upgrades are those won in the three bonus areas between the driving stages. Moreover, you only have one competitor throughout the entire race to match wits against and the computer AI is rather suspect. If he gets a good lead on your truck, for some strange reason you’ll find him chugging along letting you have a final chance of beating him to the finish line. However, if the contest is a close one, or you are in the lead, quickly will the afterburners come on and you’ll soon be munching on a mouthful of dust.

Controlling your simulated big rig is incredibly simpler than that of real life, and this is coming from a guy who drives them for a living. Sega has allowed the player to completely customize their preferred layout so you get to pick which button does what on the DualShock 2. Personally, this has always my preferred method of gaming and I literally do flip-flops of joy whenever the option is available. My only complaint is that the right analog stick cannot be used for acceleration or braking, something that I’ve conformed to ever since picking up my first copy of Gran Turismo back in 1998. Nevertheless, when you hit a button to do something, it happens instantaneously with no delay at all, which makes for a very enjoyable gaming experience. Even though I’ve had limited experience with the Sega arcade titles, I do believe that Eighteen Wheeler is running on the same game engine of that of Crazy Taxi, which received numerous amounts of praise from both gamers and the media alike. If this is the case, I can easily understand why the game is such a joy to control.

Visually, EW:APT is an exact duplicate of the arcade version. In all honesty, this is a good thing, as the graphics definitely are not weak by any definition of the word. Environments are bustling with background action and there is a plethora of interaction between the sidewalks. Traffic is always coming and going on both sides of the roadways and it varies from other big trucks to tiny subcompacts. The environments are also just as fitting for whatever part of the country you are supposed to be driving through. There is no clipping, slowdown or even the tiniest bit of draw-in evident and the framerate maintains a constant flow no matter how many other vehicles are on the screen at the same time.

Along with the direct port of the arcade version, Eighteen Wheeler has two additional modes; Parking and Score Attack. Both modes have four individual levels to complete in where the regular assortment of tractors and trailers are available to be chosen. In the Parking mode, players are forced to manipulate their rigs along predetermined paths that range in various levels of difficulty. Each level has five different parking situations that the player must master before the expiring timer, well…err…um, expires. Penalties are accessed, in the form of time reductions, for hitting stationary objects, so it pays to keep control of your rig at all times.

The Score Attack mode has drivers looking to rack up as many points as possible while completing three circuits on one of the four available tracks. Players receive bonus points for wrecking specific vans and get penalty points for hitting other vehicles or smacking your trailer into barriers or walls, all the while racing the same driver you have competed against through the entire game. These two modes help to expand the rather limited shelf-life of the game, but neither do much more than adding a few hours of play at the most.

The sound options for Eighteen Wheeler are rather average. There is no surround sound support and gamers are limited to the regular mono or stereo options. Nevertheless, your world is filled with background noises aplenty, including some rather interesting CB conversation from your racing competition. Personally, I would have preferred more depth in this area, but the existing options are more than adequate for this title.

Unfortunately, the extras for Eighteen Wheeler: APT are exceptionally scarce. One might think that a title of this nature would require an online option, however, it was released before Sony had their online act together. Hence, gamers are forced to stay home and invite their friends over to take on the two-player versus mode instead. In this option, two players go head-to-head in the Score Attack mode. Players have, once again, a rather restrictive selection of trucks and trailers, four and seven respectively, to use in the competition. Furthermore, you have the exact same four tracks that were used in the one-player Score Attack to compete on. Although this mode is a a nice treat, it really is like handing a candy bar to a starving man; it takes the edge off the hunger but it doesn’t do much for nourishment.

There are some unlockable trucks and trailers available for completing the extra modes, but the one truck and two trailers really does little to expand your horizons.

Besides this, the only additional feature for the game is the ability to utilize the Logitech Driving Force steering wheel in place of your DualShock 2 controller. While this might not usually be a big deal, the Driving Force wheel is only surpassed in excellence by the official GT4 wheel, also developed by Logitech. Unlike the steering wheels made by other companies, the DF actually does what you want and helps to expand the gaming experience. Kudos to Sega for including this option.

Eighteen Wheeler: APT gives players as many ups and downs as an amusement park roller coaster. The gameplay and the control both are topnotch gaming while the depth and overall length of the title are extremely lacking. Although this is perfectly okay for an arcade machine, having something of this nature on a home system is just unacceptable. Here, quantity must at least equal quality and unfortunately the fuel tank is less than half full. EW: APT is completely fine as a rental, or as a back-up, back-up choice from the bargain bin when you just can’t find something else that tickles your fancy. It just doesn’t have the power to pull itself through the gaming gorge. This one ends up in the breakdown lane, waiting on the wrecker to arrive.

Difficulty: 5

Control: 8

Audio: 5

Visuals: 7

Replayability: 3

Overall: 5.2