Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing

Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing
File:Big Rigs - Over the Road Racing Coverart.png North American cover art.
Developer(s)	Stellar Stone
Publisher(s)	Activision Value (2003) GameMill Publishing (2004)
Producer(s)	Sergey Titov
Programmer(s)	Sergey Titov Denis Julitov
Artist(s)	Stellar Stone (Yaroslav Kulov, Svetlana Slavinskaya, and Peter Jameson) (3D art) NixPix Ltd. (3D art)
Composer(s)	Alex Burton
Engine	Eternity engine
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Genre(s)	Racing
Mode(s)	Single-player

Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing (often simply referred to as Big Rigs) is a 2003 third-person racing video game developed by Stellar Stone and published by Activision Value for Microsoft Windows PC systems; in 2004, GameMill Publishing was instead chosen to distribute copies of the title. The game was released only in North America.

Although the packaging of Big Rigs states that the main objective of the game is to race their Big Rig to safety in order to deliver illegal cargo being carried by the vessel, while avoiding the local police force, in actuality, there are no police in the game, and no such objectives are presented within the game itself. Much of the game instead centers on the player racing their truck against fellow drivers to the finish line; however, the player's computer-controlled opponent vehicles have no AI and never move from the starting position. In addition, due to a lack of collision detection, there are no obstacles to negotiate within the game, and the laws of physics can be violated frequently.

Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing received unanimously negative reviews; much of the criticism for the game was directed at a lack of collision detection, frequent glitches, its visuals, and severe lack of functionality. As a result, the title is currently regarded as the worst or one of the worst video games of all-time. Despite these criticisms, the game sold fairly well, selling nearly 20,000 copies in total, as well as gaining a cult following on the internet.

Gameplay

File:Big Rigs.jpg

A Big Rig drives into a wall in the "Small Town Road" level; a severe lack of collision detection and frequent violation of the laws of physics were the game's main problems.

The packaging of Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing states that the objective of the game is for the player to "[...] deliver illegal cargo, with cops chasing [them]"; however, in actuality, there are no police in the game or, seemingly, any objectives to complete. The packaging also states that the player must "race trucks across the country" while delivering such cargo; however, although computer-controlled opponent vehicles do indeed appear in the game, they have no artificial intelligence, and never move from their starting position.

There are technically no obstacles for the player to negotiate in Big Rigs, as the truck may freely be driven on and off roads without any loss of traction, up or down 90° slopes with no loss or gain of speed, through structures such as buildings and trees, simply falling right through bridges, and even out of the boundaries of the map into an endless grey void. When the player's vehicle is put into reverse, it can accelerate indefinitely, but the truck will halt instantly when the reverse key is released.

Though there appear to be five courses from which to choose, only four are playable. The fifth map, titled "Small Town Road", does not function and selecting it simply crashes or quits the game.

Upon completion of the race, the game displays a large three-handled trophy and the now infamous text "YOU'RE WINNER !" [sic] The game occasionally fails to distinguish between whether the player is starting or finishing the race when they pass through the starting point, and so this congratulatory screen may appear within seconds of starting a game, ending the race before it even begins.

Stellar Stone released a patch that addressed some of the game's complaints. With the patch, the opponent vehicles participate in the race, but stop before they reach the finish line, making the game still impossible to lose. Small Town Road, the non-functional track, was replaced with an exact mirror image of the first track, Devil Passage 1. Some versions of the patch replaced the "YOU'RE WINNER !" text with "YOU WIN!". Sound effects were also added, and later copies shipped with the patch by default. However, no effort was made to alter the physics of the game, and other common complaints were not addressed.

Development

Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing was developed and programmed in Ukraine by California-based company Stellar Stone; however, Sergey Titov was incorrectly credited as lead programmer due to his involvement in creating and licensing his proprietary engine to Stellar Stone via his company TS Group Entertainment. Both Big Rigs and Midnight Race Club: Supercharged! were originally intended to be released as one game; however, Stellar Stone split the project in two early on in production. The reason for this is unclear; Titov speculates it was to increase sales.

Reception

File:YOU'RE WINNER trophy.jpg

The infamous "YOU'RE WINNER !" screen; a lack of proper grammar was another major criticism of Big Rigs.

Reception

Aggregate scores

Aggregator	Score
GameRankings	3.83%
Metacritic	8%

Review scores

Publication	Score
GameSpot	1/10
Netjak	0/10
SwankWorld	1/10
Thunderbolt Games	1/10

Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing received overwhelming negative reviews from critics, and has been frequently listed among the worst video games of all-time. It garnered an 8 out of 100 score on Metacritic, with the only scores higher than 0 being 1, which were given by websites that did not have a 0 score, giving it the lowest score of any game on Metacritic, as well as an average score of 3.83% on GameRankings, making it the number one "All-Time Worst" video game on the website.

Matt Wadleigh of Thunderbolt Games stated "I wish I could think of some redeeming factors for [Big Rigs], but there simply aren't any", rating the game a score of 1/10. It was also featured on the X-Play "Games You Should Never Buy" segment where series co-host Morgan Webb described Big Rigs as "the worst game ever made," and refused to even rate it as their 1/5 rating system did not feature a zero score. Netjak gave the game 0.0, commenting that a preferable negative score was not given because the design of the site wouldn't let the reviewer do so. Alex Navarro of GameSpot declared that Big Rigs is "as bad as your mind will allow you to comprehend"; later in his review, Navarro added, "Please do not play this game. We cannot stress this enough." Navarro's video review has no narration whatsoever; it consists of in-game footage interspersed with wider shots showing Navarro staring in disbelief, crying, beating his head on a desk and finally exiting the building and lying down in the middle of an alley in disgust. In the Halloween video Frightfully Bad Games, Navarro stated, "This game received the lowest score in the history of GameSpot, a 1.0. And by lowest, I mean it can't go any lower. We don't hand out zeros, but maybe we should have for Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing."

Big Rigs has developed a reputation for its poor quality; in GameSpot's "Best and Worst of 2004" awards, Big Rigs was given the "Flat-out Worst Game" award, despite the fact that the game was actually released in 2003. They said that they would use the "YOU'RE WINNER !" trophy as a symbol for the 'Flat-Out Worst Game' award from then on, but by 2005, a more generic logo was used. In 2009, the game was nominated for Worst Video Game of the Decade at the 2009 SAGY Awards by ScrewAttack, losing to Sonic the Hedgehog. In Skate 3 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, the player can obtain an achievement or trophy entitled "You're Winner" if he or she wins an online match, a reference to Big Rigs' "YOU'RE WINNER !" trophy. Actual sales figures for the game are unknown, although GameSpot has stated that "perhaps most disgusting of all is that this game actually sold copies. More copies, in fact, than more than half of our finalists in the Best Game No One Played category", the criteria for which is selling fewer than 20,000 copies of the game.

See also

• List of video games notable for negative reception

External links

• Template:GameFAQs
• Metacritic review summary
• Big Rigs speechless GameSpot Review
• Big Rigs Fansite