18 Wheels of Steel Extreme Trucker

Is there anything about truck driving that's romantic? Difficult to say, but there's certainly an attraction to the open road, and long journeys. In 18 Wheels of Steel Extreme Trucker, you'll take to wheel of lots of big trucks in extreme environments.

This demo gives you an hour worth of play, which is only enough to journey around the first map in the snowy lands of Canada. There's only one game mode, and it's a series of delivery jobs around a map. You'll drive a range of trucks from single bodied ones to big rigs towing tanks of fuel.

The delivery challenges gradually get harder, with more traffic to avoid and trickier truck to drive. However, in the snow based missions here, it's not that difficult. Trucks are of course quite slow, and it's never really difficult as long as you're concentrating. This becomes a problem after a few deliveries, as the scenery isn't very interesting, and driving slowly back and forth along the same roads gets pretty boring. This reviewer struggled to keep his eyes open.

Sound and Graphics-wise, there's little to shout about. The vehicle models don't exactly shine whatever detail levels you choose in the settings menu, the engine and environment effects are pretty dull. The game would be improved with more freedom to choose jobs, and perhaps to move environments - unless you love trucking passionately, an hour trundling around icy Canada will get you yawning.

18 Wheels of Steel Extreme Trucker can really only be recommended to the truck mad out there, though as it lacks licensed vehicles, it's not really suitable for hobbyists.