Corner Confessions is for sharing guilty gaming secrets. The series will, I promise, contain the odd bombshell, but I’m going to kick it off with a thunderflash: Although I’ve been playing truck sims for nigh-on twenty years I’m still pretty hopeless at reversing HGVs.
This sad truth has been hammered home by a recent playthrough of 2012 one-off Scania Truck Driving Simulator.
A few months before SCS Software hit the big time with Euro Truck Simulator 2, they released a lorry sim with a very different feel and focus. While you can criss-cross a map in STDS, delivering cargos and making money, the sim’s main attraction is a sequence of (in-theory) brief maneuvering challenges designed to test driving skills to the limit.
The vast majority of the twenty-four ‘Dangerous Drives’ aren’t hazardous in the drive-poorly-and-you’ll-end-up-at the-bottom-of-a-ravine-or-river sense. The danger they pose is to pride and blood pressure.
Even though you’re allowed to use external cameras, and cross finish lines with scraped paint and dented bodywork (neither of which are shown on screen) a few of the Dangerous Drives came very close to beating/breaking me. The soul destroyers all had one thing in common – mandatory reversing sections.
In levels like ‘Ferry’, ‘Container Trouble’, and (gulp) ‘Leave the Port’ you’re forced to back round sharp corners and into tight turning spots. Manoeuvres I’d have executed without breaking sweat in a car, van, or rigid truck, became grueling brain-bogglers when attempted in a pivot-happy HGV. Things got so bad, at times I found myself seeking expert tuition…
…and shaking my head in disbelief at the prowess of STDS wizards like this chap…
After nine hours of clipping wing mirrors and scrubbing tires in Scania Truck Driving Simulator, I’m definitely a better artic reverser than I used to be, but true mastery still eludes me. Deep down, that rankles.
