At one time, the game 18 Wheels of Steel: Haulin occupied the niche of the "true" freight transportation simulator, which was left open by the developers of "Truckers". The developer of 18 Steel Wheels is the Czech company SCS Software. Her first game, released back in 2002, was conceived as an answer to our "Truckers 2". It was distinguished by improved graphics, but in terms of excitement and interest, it lagged far behind the product of Novosibirsk developers. Realizing his mistake, the Czech company over the next three years immediately released three new games of the same series. Each of them was better than the other. Graphics, new cities and trucks - all this only improved the series. And after another two years, the fifth game of the series, called 18 Wheel of Steel: Haulin, was released.
Game features
Players can choose from two game modes. In the first, everything is extremely simple and clear - you need to choose a specific cargo and carry it along a specific route. You need to do this every time. The second mode is a single company. What is the main goal of 18 Wheel of Steel: Haulin? Make a lot of money? Capture America's freight market? Destroy competitors? No no and one more time no! Nothing to do. The whole map is already open to you initially. There is virtually no competition. You need to conclude a contract with the company, get a truck and set off to travel on the web of American highways (and a bit of Canada). There are no goals in 18 Wheel of Steel: Haulin, either explicit or hidden. True, there is an opportunity to choose from three difficulty levels. However, this will not give you anything. The only thing this choice will affect is the amount of initial money, the difficult entry into the garage behind the first trailer.
Impressions of 18 Wheel of Steel: Haulin
You can play for five minutes, twenty, an hour ... and outside the window of your truck is the same landscape and the gray ribbon of the highway. Does the driver often yawn? You can stay at a roadside hotel. Running out of gas? It's time to call in for a gas station. That's all the fun. You have unlimited freedom of movement throughout America, but there’s nothing to do with it. Your truck can go anywhere in the continent for no reason. Find a dealer in the middle of the road and jerk in the other direction. In the game 18 Wheels of Steel: Haulin there are 30 trucks, as many trailers and transport companies. And with all this, there are no restrictions. All tractors are available immediately. Companies have no ratings or differences. All roads and loads are also available from the first minute. Boring!
Other development options
If a simple ride on the roads of America is completely boring for you, then you can try to build your own empire of cargo transportation. Just remember that when the company is fully completed, there will be absolutely nothing to do in the game. For your transport company to become full-fledged, you will need several things: free trucks, drivers and trailers. After you take some goods yourself, your tenant will be ready to cooperate. This means that he is ready to hire other drivers whom you advise. The transport company will pay a substantial fee for these drivers.
Finally, you hired 6-8 drivers and suddenly everything became good: you are happy, the company is happy, the drivers are not complaining either. That's just the tractor life is not so sweet. Due to the high mileage, all parts of your cars begin to wear out up to 90%. However, taking into account the income from all the hired drivers, repair is not even noticeable in terms of economy.
For fans only
As in the entire 18 Steel Wheel game line, this part is designed only for fans of the not-so-popular trucker simulator genre. Most of them have enough truck and free road, and everything else does not matter. But mistakes need to be fixed. But for some reason, Czech developers are in no hurry to do this. For example, players have long complained about the strange rule of unloading a trailer: you only need to do this backwards. To make it difficult? Probably so. Against the background of the absence of at least some difficulties, this seems to be the only test.
Feel like a real big truck driver in 18 Wheels of Steel: Haulin. Fashion to which go out every year.