Hard Truck Apocalypse / Ex Machina
There are a lot of games on Steam, but once in a while, you browse the catalogue and discover a little gem hiding somewhere in the deep ends of the underated section. Ex Machina is one of those games, but let me start off by saying that this game certainly isn’t for everyone, it’s genre is considered to be a very acquired taste, but I would say it’s worth the buy anyway just for the sake of trying it. I didn’t expect it to be anything amazing given it’s lack of popularity, but I was wrong, this game is truly brilliant.
– Real player with 96.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Automobile Sim Atmospheric Games.
The Crossout single-player predecessor, Hard Truck Apocalypse (original name Ex Machina fits it even better) was somewhat quite intense when it first hit the shelves. The gameplay (similar to the golden classic of the Russian game development, the Vangers) was quite addictive, with all that driving in the wastes of the post-apocalyptic open world, shooting bandits, upgrading your car, delivering some post quests and convoying caravans… Driving, driving and then some more driving and fighting with your car. There was also an intriguing sci-fi story plot, with some twists and various ways to go through the game (two starting quest lines, non-linear solutions in every big chained mission in every game area, and two endings, with two different boss fights and outcomes).
– Real player with 75.8 hrs in game
Hard Truck Apocalypse: Rise Of Clans / Ex Machina: Meridian 113
This open-world, third-person, post-apocalyptic driving shooter is kind of odd. It’s also kind of old. This game is from the mid-’00s, and there are some issues getting it to work reliably on new systems [like it failing to save video settings after restarting, occasional crashes]. The translation from Russian is a bit rough, but overall the gameplay of driving about and shooting all sorts of things is compelling. Especially because you get to customize your rig, not just with different chassies, but within chassises. You tend to have three or so different models of cab and/or trailer to swap out, equip, and possibly even load up with cargo.
– Real player with 25.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Automobile Sim Action Games.
It only took me 2 days to finish the storyline which I found actually short(Half the time I was actually trading and buying and doing side quests). I haven’t finished Ex Machina since I don’t want to end the game too soon. Anyways just like Ex Machina its the same vehicle combat game rpg with trading and quests. The trucks are the same in addition to adding the scout and the fighter that you can actually drive. The paint jobs got a bit more of an upgrade giving some personality to your truck. Same weapons return just like the previous. I did enjoyed this one but like I said I was bummed that I finished it too early. The boss fights were a bit fustrating and your character tends to kill anything on his path. But hey we got a new region which is now in North America. But I found em a bit smaller in towns. There were some cities but they were that enough. I still recommend it if you were a fan of Ex Machina.
– Real player with 17.7 hrs in game
The Long Drive
Relaxing. Fun and satisfying physics. Satisfying car handling. Freedom of exploration, and medium freedom in car setups and mixing of components. Someone said is more like a tech demo at this point. While it can definitely be defined that way specially due to the very sandboxy setting, it can be way more than that, depending on your approach to the game.
While definitely not for everyone, its the perfect game for goofing around, RolePlaying, or just relaxing with the driving sim mechanics after a long work day.
– Real player with 381.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Automobile Sim Open World Games.
Overall, great driving game.
Discover vehicles, install and combine parts.
Updates are occasional but devs surely keep working on the game.
If you’re tired from action and want some chill drive, with some podcasts or audiobooks on the background, this game is for you.
– Real player with 279.1 hrs in game
Hard Truck Apocalypse: Arcade / Ex Machina: Arcade
HTA Arcade is an attempt to dumb down the original Hard Truck Apocalypse (aka Ex Machina) into an arcade shoot-em-up. However, it does not support controller, and the keyboard/ mouse controls are horrible. The game is also extremely unbalanced, and there’s NEVER enough heal. The in-game purchases to improve your trucks are EXTREMELY expensive, and lack of savepoints or checkpoints make the entire game extremely frustrating. You’re much better off playing the actual HTA, not the arcade game.
– Real player with 11.0 hrs in game
Sure the game might crash if you try to change the resolution. Sure the game might crash if you try to alt tab it. Sure the game might crash if you change any of the graphical settings. Sure there might be invisible mines that lead to an instantenous and unavoidable death in level 6. Still I found this game to be quite fun and enjoyable. It has some flaws for sure, but nothing that can’t be overlooked and it is cheap as dirt most of the time.
– Real player with 6.2 hrs in game
RAGE 2
“When things go wrong, don’t go with them.”
~Elvis Presley
First of all, this game is not nearly as bad as you may have probably heard or expected by looking at “mixed reviews” status in Steam. Personally? I’ve enjoyed my time here quite a lot. It’s just… OK, it won’t be so easy to explain. See, the biggest problem with RAGE 2 is that it is… RAGE 2. I mean, Avalanche Studios? The guys did a pretty nice job here. The core mechanics is very solid, leveling system is kinda great (seriously, I totally enjoyed it), gameplay is very fast-paced, like in all those modern incarnations of the old titles like DOOM, Shadow Warrior and the others, while Apex Engine provides surprisingly solid FPS on highest settings in 4K. Even on pretty old hardware. When I’ve started playing through the tutorial mission? I was like “Wait just a minute, why everybody hates this game so much?!” Then I played a bit more and was like “Ah, OK, I see it now…”. See, even though core mechanics is very nice, the idea of wasting it on resurrecting RAGE? It was terrible.
– Real player with 133.6 hrs in game
I would not recommend Rage 2 to a fan of the series. I would not recommend Rage 2 to a newcomer to the series. It is a painfully mediocre game crippled by the fact it is open world.
If you want a game for world exploration and discovery, go play Fallout New Vegas. If you want a game with epic guns and action, go play Doom. This blends the two genres and makes them both worse.
Design:
I believe if Rage 2 was designed to be linear, or at most a wide corridor, we could have had an exceptional game on our hands with more fleshed out mechanics. The thing is…. That would have made it similar to Id Software’s other title: Doom. Now it’s conspiracy theory time here but perhaps there was pressure on the Rage 2 team to force the open world genre (which was on-trend at the time) as to not create competition between the 2 titles.
– Real player with 63.9 hrs in game
Derby: Extreme Racing
I didn’t expect this to be good. It is not. A student university project. It probably got an A, but you wouldn’t even play it for free.
– Real player with 0.7 hrs in game
Horror Drift (ホラードリフト)
Ever wanted to deliver tofu while drifting on japanese touge runs? Great, because this is your chance, only problem is that the tracks you were assigned to are a little…haunted. Try not to get discouaged by the sinister presences and complete your run to earn your fame into this haunted drift world!
An arcade racing game with a horror heart: drive through the best japanese scenery and touge tracks and show what you are capable of, but be aware of the dangers that lure in the dark. You can go for the points by drifting your tires out, or go for speed and best time, driving as fast as you can. Be careful though: on the tracks, numerous evil entities are trying to slow you down and make you crash. Will you be able to avoid them all and cross the finish line? Every drift you make, every corner you cross, will make you closer to unlocking new tracks and new cars, with an ever growing chioce that will be kept updated and renewed even after launch. But behind every corner lies a possible danger that may completely wipe all your progress, randomly generated for your (un)pleasure. Be fast, be smart, don’t get scared.
Desert Pirates
Lead a post apocalyptic war convoy made out of badass cars driven by unusual characters. Travel across a dangerous and endless desert filled with resource seeking opponents.
In this experience inspired by movies like Mad Max and spaceship roguelikes, you can expand and improve your convoy, find new cars and swap out their weapons and tools, upgrade, repair and refuel them, feed drivers and give out orders to help everyone survive.
How far can you ride?
Features
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Unlock and collect badass cars: Find cars to restore in every run, and store them in your garage for later use. The desert is filled with hidden surprises!
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Make runs with different convoys: Change your Convoy to fit your playstyle! Choose between Soldiers with Nitro, Heavy Soldiers with special weapons, start with additional food or gas, special systems like Shields, Radars, Decoys and more!
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Survive the desert: You will need to destroy enemy settlements in order to get the resources you need to repair and refuel your cars, and to keep your followers fed and hydrated.
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Give orders to your Convoy: Stay together, or split up! Changing orders on the fly can give you an advantage against your enemies. Light RTS mechanics are gaining traction during development (stay tuned!).
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Classic Roguelike Features: Permadeath, Upgrades, procedurally generated areas. Every playthrough is different.
Drive 4 Survival
Promising but heavy on the shooting
Very Early Access at time of writing, so understand that it’s a little rough around the edges, but zero crashes. It’s easy to pick up and play, and a strong showing this early into access.
Did I want another Open World Survival Craft game? I wasn’t sure I wanted to learn another set of you know leveling, currencies, crafting stations… with different graphics. But I got it for the driving and building, which is easy and nice. It looks as if there are plans to make this a little more involved and deeper.
– Real player with 68.9 hrs in game
So what do we have here another EA open world survival game? Ok I’ll admit I’m a bit obsessed with the genre. What’s interesting here is your vehicle is ultimately the center piece or your main tool for survival. As a gearhead, mechanic and a MadMax fan this is something I’ve wanted to see happen for a while. I can see being the hardcore survival game I so wanted the MadMax game to be. So you have some pretty interesting features, there forest maps that have temperate climates but the main map is a frozen wasteland similar to The Long Dark and your vehicle is your main source of warmth. The engine heats up as you drive keeping you warm I don’t know if the engine can overheat yet but that would be a cool feature. Of course you’ll need gasoline to keep it running as well as water and food to keep your character running. The game has a cool way of carrying and transferring liquids you will need bottles or jerry cans whether it’s gas or water. For instance if you find a fuel barrel you will need to equip a jerry can walk up to the barrel and press a button to fill the can, you can also dump the contents of your jerry can into the barrel. Same if you want to consolidate liquids in your inventory you will have to drop one container and equip the other to move the liquids. Might seem like too much busy work to some but I like these kinds of details. You’ll have initially repair your vehicle when you get it with scrap and parts and this is how will maintain it. Human enemies have their own vehicles as well and you can drive them, you can also apparently collect other vehicles though I don’t know how yet. There is some base building and outposts that have to be found and repaired though I haven’t really got into that yet besides building my first garage and a campfire. There seems to be no map and you will need to have an actual compass in your inventory for it to show on your hud. For how early access this game is the vehicle handling is pretty good even with the keyboard it’s fun to drive. You get a 4X4 Camaro which is pretty BA if you ask me and it’s pretty capable vehicle. The game also has a pretty cool feature where radios in the game, the car radio and radios at bases and some POIs connect to a rather large list of real internet radio staions. A bit of everything from 70s dance to modern rock. I’ll say there is something fun about being chased by Hot Rodding bandits in an arctic wasteland while listening to Diana Ross “I’m coming out” that I think Fallout fans will understand. There is also another feature where when your “fatigue meter”(that’s what I call it anyway) runs out and your character will pass out right were you stand, or drive. I once had it happen while I was driving across a bridge and my character fell asleep at the wheel and drove off the bridge to his death which I thought was funny. The cold affects this meter as well as fighting and sprinting, and it was bit excessive at first but the devs responded quickly to feedback and have already balanced it and many other features to make it more manageable. Now on to the combat. This is very basic at this point, you’ll find yourself fighting wolves, bears, zombies, and human raider/bandit types. The 2 aforementioned animals are arguably the most decent. Decent animated, decent AI. They will actually fight each other if the haven’t noticed you yet. I’ll often come across bears fighting packs of wolves which is cool. Zombies are zombies pretty basic. Bandits are definitely the most janky at this point but not really in really bad way just animations are kind of weird. There ar only a handful of weapons and tools at this point so far I’ve seen and used the axe in both stone and metal versions, similarly the pickaxe. Then you can craft a wodden club and I found a version with nails. So far only 2 firearms a pistol and rifle both using the same pistol ammo and a hit scanning insta kill crossbow. Well everything except bears are insta kill with the crossbow. The bow and pistol are animated ok but the rifle is bolt action yet uses a pump action animation. Doesn’t seem to be locational damage but I may be wrong. This is definitely the weakest part of the game right now but it’s not terrible, again this is very early access and it’s also not the major focus so if that is a problem for you then maybe this isn’t the right game at the moment for you. The name of the game is “Drive” 4 Survival not “Fight” 4 Survival. However the devs seem very active as of writing this the devs have already put out like 5 or 6 updates, hotfixes and even rebalances based on player feedback and its only been out a few days. I was actually watching a Youtuber livestream and the dev jumped into the chat to get feedback and also give tips to the streamer. So they seem active in the community. Only time will tell but I do see a lot of potential here for a vehicular based openworld survival game and if that tickles your fancy like me give it a try.
– Real player with 47.8 hrs in game
Mad Max
I think Mad Max is an awesome game set in a post apocalyptic era with a rough setting with limited supplies & ammo but being a bad ass with a car thats built from scrap to becoming a beast, a tank with 4 wheels, your magna opius which will pave the way to destroying all who dare stop you from from achieving your goals to be wit your family again by any means necessary.
– Real player with 147.0 hrs in game
This game is a LOT of fun. I played this game for a little while on an XB1X and enjoyed it, but was distracted by some other title at the time and walked away. WB was running a publisher sale here on Steam, so I picked it up and got re-involved during squad downtime.
GAMEPLAY: Mad Max (MM) plays a lot like the Batman:Arkham series. Lots of driving with highly satisfying demolition derby-esque vehicle combat; and hand-to-hand ground combat where you chain together strikes, combos, weapons, and finishers that make you feel like a dusty Dark Knight. The world is HUGE but roaring across the map to the dulcet tones of an unmuffled V8 make it traversable in an oh-so-pleasing way. The game can get a little grindy as you accomplish all of the side missions and secondary objectives (oh look, another water point guarded by a coupla maniacs) but I cut my teeth on Elder Scrolls titles, so I ain’t skeered. The self-centering camera takes a little bit to get used to, and is slightly more cumbersome on foot rather than in a vehicle, but once you get accustomed to it, you can manipulate the camera in sweeping fashion during action phases with an ability that would make even George Miller shed a single tear of joy.
– Real player with 92.5 hrs in game