The King of Route 66

"Well I rolled out of Pittsburgh, I'm going down that eastern seaboard... I've got my diesel wound up and she's a-goin' like never before..."

When Acclaim released 18 Wheeler on the PS2, the game developed a small but fervent fan base that adored every minute of gameplay?all 20 or so of them. The King of Route 66 is the exact same thing?race a giant truck all around the country and beat your rivals to the ground?but extends the concept to its barely sustainable limits, adding more stuff to do but making the game?s limitations even more obvious.

You can?t say that the game ends too quickly this time around?King has four game modes and a far heftier number of roads to raze with your rig. The best mode by far is The Queen of Route 66?it proceeds like a mini-RPG with your trucker of choice racing across the backroads of America, saving innocent girls from redneck vagrants and using the prize money to buy new parts for his nitro ride. This mode gets genuinely interesting in spots, and the overacted cut-scenes perfectly mesh with the ?down-home? theme.

Unfortunately, cut-scenes alone do not make a game. The gameplay itself is unchanged from 18 Wheeler, with your lumbering truck falling out of control at the drop of a feather and the graphics looking just a shade above Dreamcast quality. Add to this brew the game?s rage-inducing difficulty?as in 18 Wheeler, the AI takes advantage of every tiny mistake on your part to win, requiring multiple replays of nearly every leg in your tour. It?s fine if you can get into the atmosphere, but otherwise it?s about as fun as driver school.

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