Should you take to the big open road?
Truck Driver: The American Dream will have a big emphasis on both simulation and storytelling. Starting out as a complete loser, you decide to get your life back on track by chasing the American Dream.
The term “The American Dream” can mean many different things to many different people. For some, it’s getting the dream house, dream job or whatever else springs to mind. What it definitely is not, is driving a truck across America, earning low wages and listening to the ramblings of your co-worker.
Instead, that is what you get with this not quite serious simulator of truck driving. There’s a story to be found here, but the voice-acting is unbelievable, sometimes laughably so and you either chuckle along to it or tune out to it after a while. The core gameplay is as you would expect from the title so don’t go expecting much else here. The trucks handling are a bit of a mixed bag, but they are manageable.
What isn’t though is the insane logic of your fellow drivers. Should you find yourself in a situation where you need to turn your truck around in a one-way street for example, the cars will keep pushing forward, literally forcing you into a bottleneck situation. I had one such instance where cars kept coming and some would literally vanish into thin air, but such moments could take ages to get out of.
Driving the trucks aren’t as complex as you would imagine it would be, but if you are looking for that sort of game then maybe try Truck Simulator instead. That being said, you will incur fines for driving on the wrong side of the road or running red lights.etc
The visuals look good in parts and bad in others. The trucks and roads are nicely detailed, but the environments look a bit bland overall. Framerate is mostly consistent and load times between chapters are short.
The Verdict
Truck Driver: The American Dream is more of a story-driven driving game than a truck simulation. The problem with that is the story isn’t very good and feels as long as the open highway. The trucks handle well for the most part and you do actually have to adjust your driving to slippery roads, but the rest is very simplistic. It’s not a terrible game by any means, but The American Dream, it is not.