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Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing

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Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing
The box for Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing
The box for Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing
Developer: Stellar Stone LLC
Publisher: Activision (2003),
GameMill Publishing (2004)
Release date: November 20, 2003
Genre: Racing
Game modes: Single player
ESRB rating: Everyone (E)
Platform: PC
Media: CD

Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing is an interactive computer game that is noted for surreal gameplay and the unusually negative reviews it attracted. The premise of Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing is that the player races a semi-trailer truck against one controlled by the game, avoiding obstacles such as police traps and treacherous roads. The game as played, however, involves none of these things; the box for the game even stated how great it was, only for GameSpot to consider the box facts "horrible, horrible lies". The box said: "Race trucks across the country, with cops chasing you" yet there were no cops in the game.

Because none of the computer-controlled opponents move, there is in fact no actual race. One simply guides the truck towards the checkpoints and on to the finish, and winning is virtually guaranteed. There are also no true obstacles, as the truck may freely be driven on and off roads, over the most vertical hills and through the structures (like houses and lampposts), and into the sky without consequence. The truck falls through bridges as if they didn't exist, but the truck is able to drive on top of the water without loss of speed or acceleration. This is not a special or secret mode of the game, the behavior of heavy vehicles in the real world is simply ignored. The player may travel at virtually infinite speeds (when going reverse and letting the down arrow key loose, the truck stops instantly, no matter what speed the player has), turning the truck even while stationary. Upon completing the race, the player is presented with a large on-screen trophy cup with the text "YOU'RE WINNER!" overlaid, provided that all checkpoints have been passed. Newer editions of the game simply state "YOU WIN!" when the player passes all the checkpoints.

Stellar Stone LLC, developers of the game, released a patch that alters the behavior of the computer-controlled truck. With the patch applied, the opponent does participate in the race, but stops before it reaches the finish line.

Reviews

Cheat Code Central wrote, "Imagine a racing game without a race. There is no time limit to beat and there is no one to race against. So what's the point?" and assigned 0.5 out of five points to its overall evaluation. Thunderbolt Games concurred, stating "I wish I could think of some redeeming factors for the game, but there simply aren’t any" and gave Big Rigs 1/10. It was also featured on the X-Play segment "Games You Should Never Buy".

According to the review published by GameSpot, Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing is "so astoundingly bad that it manages to transcend nearly every boundary put forth by some of gaming's absolute worst of the worst and easily makes it into that dubiously extraordinary category of being one of the most atrocious games ever published." It rated the product 1.0/10 ("abysmal"), the lowest score given to any game in the history of that website. It was also given that site's well-known dubious award of "Flat-out Worst Game of 2004". During April Fool's Day it was recommended as a good game to look into.

Until recently, Big Rigs was also the only game in GameFAQs history to have all "1/10" for its reviews page.

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