Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing
| Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Stellar Stone LLC |
| Publisher(s) | Activision (2003) GameMill Publishing (2004) |
| Platform(s) | PC |
| Release | November 20, 2003 |
| Genre(s) | Racing |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing is a racing game released for PC by Stellar Stone LLC in 2003. The game received nearly universal negative reviews, with many critics referring to it as the worst video game of all time.
Gameplay
The box of Big Rigs grandiosely proclaims that the player may "[r]ace trucks across the country, with cops chasing [him or her]." GameSpot considered this description of the game to be nothing more than "terrible, horrible lies" [1] since there are, in fact, no "cops" at all in the game. In addition, no proper racing occurs in Big Rigs, as the "computer-controlled" opponent vehicle has no AI and never actually moves from the starting position. The player can, then, simply guide their truck through the checkpoints and to the finish at their leisure in order to achieve victory.
There are no true obstacles whatsoever for the player to negotiate in Big Rigs, as the truck may freely be driven on and off roads without any loss of traction, straight up the steepest of hills, through structures, and even out of the map's boundaries, all without any reciprocal change in speed. The truck falls through bridges as if they do not even exist, but this does not present a problem for the player because the truck is capable of driving on water at the same speed it does on land. In addition, when the player's truck is put into reverse, it has no terminal velocity; so long as the reverse key is held, the truck will accelerate indefinitely. It is even possible, after several minutes of acceleration in this manner, for the speedometer to reach many thousands of times the speed of light. However, as soon as the reverse key is released, no matter what speed the truck is travelling at, it will halt instantly. Indeed, the actual acceleration of the truck increases over time, along with its speed. Put simply, Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing largely ignores the laws of physics.
Upon completion of the "race," the player is presented with a large, on-screen trophy cup overlaid with the text "YOU'RE WINNER!". One of the game's most quoted elements, this phrase has become something of an Internet phenomenon in the gaming community. Due to a developer oversight, the game occasionally fails to distinguish between whether the player is starting or finishing the race when they pass through the starting checkpoint, and so this screen may effectively appear to end the race before it even begins. In addition, one of the game's five maps causes the game to crash altogether when accessed. [2]
In response to criticism of the game, its developers released a patch that altered the behavior of the computer-controlled truck. With the patch applied, the opponent does participate in the race, but stops before it reaches the finish line. The fifth map that caused the game to crash when selected was also fixed. However, this "fix" simply replaced the broken track with a mirror image of the first track without changing the corresponding preview image or name. This introduced an inconsistency between the track design a player believed to have selected and the one actually used.
Despite all these issues, Big Rigs managed to be a commercial success. Though no known sales figures exist, the game was reportedly made entirely on a $15,000 budget [3]. At USD $5 per game, Stellar Stone would have only needed to sell 3,000 copies to break even. According to GameSpot, Big Rigs sold several times that amount [4].
Reception
Big Rigs was subject to an overwhelming number of negative reviews. Thunderbolt Games stated, "I wish I could think of some redeeming factors for the game, but there simply aren't any" and gave the game a score of 1/10. [5] It was also featured on the X-Play segment "Games You Should Never Buy," and was actually described by Morgan Webb as "the worst game ever made." [6] Netjak rewrote the code of their site to allow the game to receive a score of 0.0.[7]
Alex Navarro of GameSpot declared that Big Rigs is "so astoundingly bad that it manages to transcend nearly every boundary put forth by some of gaming's absolute worst of the worst and easily makes it into that dubiously extraordinary category of being one of the most atrocious games ever published."[2] In the special "frightfully bad games" video, Navarro stated, "This game received the lowest score in the history of Gamespot, a 1.0. And by lowest, I mean it can't go any lower. We don't hand out zeros, but maybe we should have for Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing."
Big Rigs was also given GameSpot's dubious award of "Flat-out Worst Game" award in 2004, despite the fact that the game was actually released in 2003. They said that they would use the "YOU'RE WINNER!" trophy as a symbol for the 'Flat-Out Worst Game' award but by 2005, a more generic logo was used.[1]
Notes
- ^ a b "Flat-Out Worst Game". GameSpot's Best and Worst of 2004. GameSpot.
- ^ a b Narvarro, Alex. Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing for PC Review. GameSpot. January 14, 2004.
- ^ Stellar Stone LLC Services page
- ^ GameSpot's award for Worst Game of 2004 states that Big Rigs outsold three of the five games in the "Best Game No One Played" category; the criteria for that award is that each game sold fewer than 20,000 units in North America.
- ^ Wadleigh, Matt. Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing Review - PC. Thunderbolt Games. March 22, 2004.
- ^ Satterfield, Shane. "Games You Should Never Buy". X-Play (G4). March 23, 2004.
- ^ "Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing review". Netjak.
See also
External links
- Stellar Stone LLC
- Stellar Stone LLC Support Page Official patch download for the game
- Template:GameFAQs
Reviews