What’s the first thing you do if you’re making a driving game about trucking cargo across frozen Lake Ladoga during WW2? Chap in the ushanka and the Россия без Путина t-shirt? Correct, Sir, you ensure your vehicle handling isn’t blander than unseasoned kasha. If the ice carriageway in the Road of Life demo had produced the odd slide or skid, I’d probably have been willing to overlook issues such as the annoying mini-games and occasional performance slumps.
The Road of Life trial serves up some memorable scenes and incidents. Crawling through a blizzard with snowflakes whirling through your headlight beams? Evocative. Happening upon an accident – a comrade in need of assistance? Exciting, until you realise you might have to play a fussy power-meter mini-game in order to help them out.
The game’s repair dimension would have added some welcome grist if it hadn’t been so shallow. Opening a bonnet, IDing a ruddy component, and then switching it with a new one with a single mouse-click, doesn’t constitute top-notch entertainment in my book.
The same could be said for dodging the red circles that helpfully appear seconds before bombs land.
Early on the demo hints that the sub-zero temperature is going to be as dangerous as the Luftwaffe, but having let my avatar stand around in the open for half an hour, and forced him to take a dip in a flooded bomb crater, it appears death from exposure isn’t a possible fate.
Студия Искра, give me icy ice, fear of frostbite, and a spot of oily sleuthing, and I’ll happily give Road of Life a second chance.
Thank you Tim. This is disappointing, as the setting is original. I guess this is one more reminder that a good idea and good looking graphics aren’t enough to make a good game…