Now, let me preface this by saying I knew exactly what I was getting into. I did my research with it and the company who put this out. Why am I saying this? Because I am going to be ripping into this absolute dumpster fire of a release with this article. Honestly. Avoid it. But now, for entertainment purposes, let’s begin.
The first thing to note is the game page on the eShop. The description is set on highlighting a large American city. It must be a fantastic world to explore, then. From Midtown to small villages, this “large american city (yes, the description fails to capitalise the name) and its outskirts” should prove to be a great playground to have fun in. The entire world is smaller than GTA Vice City. Of course, it’s difficult to know that when there’s no map.
Yeah… that’s helpful when you’re constantly moving about this world, isn’t it? Your only guide is an arrow, which I’ll touch on again later. Continuing on with looking at the page, it lists some features. Realistic driving starts us off, which is something I’ll credit it with doing well. The driving of vehicles is fine. Next up is a well animated and detailed city. Animated how, exactly? Aside from the traffic, this is a barren copy-pasted world where everything looks alike.
A dynamic day and night cycle is here. Why it’s here, I have absolutely no idea. Not like anything depends on it, which is odd considering the description mentions how this “large american city” counts on your deliveries on time. There’s realistic simulated traffic here, which… works. Except when it doesn’t. Vehicles randomly swerving, spinning out, crashing into the back of you, and just generally being confused on whether they’re following a road or a rollercoaster.
Now, would you like to explore the city and its outskirts on foot? Because you can. Just why you’d want to do that when you have no map or any way to quickly return to your vehicle, I have no idea. But hey, you’re a delivery driver so need to leave the van to get inside where you’re delivering the parcels to. Which brings us to the last feature. Exploring large interior spaces. Which is great, except it’s not. These interior spaces are barren and buggy, with doors that can trap you if standing in their way when they try to open. Which is awesome news when you need to stand near to them for them to open in the first place.
As for the second part of that last feature, there’s a shopping mall here. God help anyone who has to deliver something within it. This is the only place where you will see – shock horror – people. But because of that, performance will absolutely tank itself to the single frames whenever they’re on screen. General performance of the game is usually stable outside, and can drop when inside, but is really at its worst with this shopping mall. And yet it’s advertised as part of a feature.
If that so far has painted a bad picture of this game, then don’t go expecting it to get any better. At all. It’s a game about being a delivery driver, so you’d expect some form of management, right? Access a list of jobs, pick something up and drive it there to get paid depending on time? Or like Lake, where each day brings a list of deliveries to make? Oh, no. This isn’t a game about choice. Of freedom. Of any sort of business management.
The arrow above your van points to where you need to go. Get there, pull a generic parcel from the back of the van, and enter the building. Then, wander aimlessly around the building looking for a parcel icon (the arrow having completely given up being helpful now you’re inside) to complete the delivery and get paid. Get outside. Repeat. Until the end of time. It really is that simple.
The game as a whole is so simple that it thinks all a player needs is a few seconds to look at the controls and they’ll be an expert. There’s no pause menu here, no settings to change the acceleration and brake off the shoulder buttons or turn off that absolutely loud and abrasive music. Just a single view of the van as you drive between locations endlessly where one accidental press of the plus button will put you back to the main menu. When it works, of course.
As I say, you do get paid. How it determines how much you’re getting paid, I have no idea. What it does tell you is how many fines you accrued from accidents and running red lights, then deduces that from how much you would have been paid. Which makes for a bad system when the AI traffic will be the ones giving you most of those fines. Or the game randomly saying you’ve had an accident from the lightest of taps. There’s one road in particular that will give you an accident fine just for driving on a certain part of it.
If you decide to undertake the journey on foot, you’re a fool. The arrow that directs you is forever cursed to hover over the van you drive, which is kind of funny when looking at the van when on foot. Especially if it has somehow moved away from the van when parked right by a building. So with no map and no way to return to the van when you’ve strayed far from it (other than to quit out and wait for the long load time when you select to get back into the game), you’re kind of restricted in how you get around.
If you’ve read some of my other articles about a few other smaller games, you could be forgiven for thinking I’ve lost the plot when I’ve been kind to the likes of Truck and Logistics Simulator and first-time efforts of other developers. As I say, I’ve researched this one. Everything I’ve mentioned here? Other people have talked of on Steam reviews from the developer’s previous game. They fixed nothing from that previous game with this one.
From what I can tell, there’s been no development progress between the two. Exact same game, except now you can walk around. What features are here feel empty, especially when needed features that would compliment them are missing entirely. There is little to be enjoying with this one. Even the goal of getting enough money to buy new vans feels hollow when the experience is riddled with randomness that restricts your revenue.
As I said at the start, avoid. It really is not worth the seventeen quid it’s on the eShop for. It’s not even worth less than a fiver. There’s better games that want you to deliver things to buy on there that will provide more entertainment than this. Sure, none of them allow you to go it on foot, but is that really worth the price of admission when you’ll definitely end up lost anyway?
Images Taken From:
Delivery Driver – The Simulation | Original Screenshots
