Clustertruck

There's no excuse of Clustertruck GOG edition being so much inferior to the Steam version.

Welcome to a world where trucks have developed sentience and gone rogue, intent on the destruction of each other and everything in their path. Where the floor, walls, and pretty much everything other than trucks is basically lava; and sometimes also has sentience and will move specifically to get in your way. It's just you: an invisible.. bouncy... thing... Against this world. Yep the game makes no sense at all, and it's not supposed to. The weirdness got a laugh or two from me at first but the novelty wore off quickly, and I realized that while each section of the game might look different, the levels all play pretty much the same. Jump on some trucks, don’t touch anything else, and reach the finish line without dying. It got repetitive. The gameplay also has a lot of randomness to it that didn’t appeal to me. This isn't the type of game where you can memorize a good path and then master it in order to finish a level quicker and with more points. The trucks seem to be given a set direction to drive forward, but then the wacky physics do the rest and set everything in motion in unexpected ways, so you have to rely on your reflexes in the moment. Meaning there’s really no “getting better” at this game. Once you’ve got used to the controls and how everything works, you’ve reached the limit of your own potential, and anywhere your abilities are lacking can only be helped by sheer luck. Not really my thing. At first I thought I’d like this one, but the randomness and lack of variety in the gameplay turned me off after a few hours.

They get paid to go through this. f A visually attractive puzzle(-ish) platformer. However, physics simulation issues keep this from being playable. Truck pathing is semi-random, which itself isn't a problem. But your interactions with the trucks is also unpredictable. Sometimes you will jump where you want, sometimes you won't get any height, sometimes you'll shoot forward far faster than you expect, and sometimes you'll be tossed hundreds of meters into the air. ds And from the first person view, it's hard to tdfaell if you're actually making contact with things. You will touch the side of a truck, unexpectedly saving yourself from a failed run and then jump too late, hitting the ground anyway. Even if you do save yourself, you are unlikely to know where the jump will send you (or where the truck will go) so even those last minute saves end in failure. In the end, it's a platformer where you need to make peace with the fact the platforms can't be jumped on, and sometimes aren't even there.

This game is incredible fun! I completed it in a day in about 7 hours and valued every second of it. The game has the cool indie feeling in the satisfying mad speed quirks and fun powerups. As for the game itself, I can easily recommend it to anyone. However, although in this review I rated the game 5 stars to comply with GOG's review guidelines, the technical details are a different story. According to the store page on Steam, the game has an in-game level editor, Steam Workshop support for player-made levels, a replay system and online leaderboards. None of that is present in the GOG version and while the lack of some features may be justified, the end result can simply not be. Not only have leaderboards been removed -- the developers broke time tracking as a whole as a result but didn't fix it, ever! Not that the game has ever been updated anyway. Because of this, I can only recommend the GOG version if it's on sale while there isn't a better deal for the Steam version, or if there's simply a slightly better price if you don't mind the features you'd miss on.