Truckful

[h1] A beautiful game that I genuinely wanted to love, undermined by frustrating design decisions [/h1] I really wanted to give Truckful a positive review. From the very beginning, it seemed to promise an experience reminiscent of DREDGE, and I hoped it would scratch that same itch for atmospheric exploration and discovery. To some extent, it did. Unfortunately, by the end, I was left feeling more disappointed than satisfied. [h2] First, the technical issues [/h2] When I initially started the game, the story apparently failed to initialize. I spent roughly an hour driving around aimlessly, unable to interact with any of the NPCs I encountered. I nearly gave up right there. Only after looking up what the beginning of the game was supposed to look like did I realize something was wrong. Restarting the game fixed the issue, and the story finally began properly. [h2] Exploration and navigation are where my biggest frustrations lie. [/h2] The fixed camera is, in my opinion, a terrible design choice for a game that places so much emphasis on exploration. There is no clear indication of your direction relative to the map, making navigation unnecessarily awkward. I understand the idea behind making GPS navigation a perk that occupies one of only three available slots. That's a fair trade-off if the intention is to encourage players to learn the roads, follow signs, and navigate from memory. I actually appreciate that kind of design. Unfortunately, the fixed camera makes underground entrances and exits surprisingly difficult to spot. Combine that with constantly respawning enemies blocking narrow tunnels, and experimenting with alternative routes becomes more frustrating than rewarding. The GPS itself doesn't help matters. I could never quite figure out what its routing algorithm was prioritizing, but it certainly didn't seem to favor the shortest available route. This became particularly irritating during missions with distance limits, where discovering efficient shortcuts should have been part of the fun. After restoring the first two junk stations, I eventually abandoned that side activity. Despite multiple attempts, I couldn't find a sufficiently short route to restore the third station within the mission's distance allowance. Consequently, gathering junk for upgrades became considerably more tedious than it needed to be. Ironically, the GPS only started behaving the way I expected during the final two missions, when the game effectively forces you to use underground routes. Only then did I begin to understand how some of the tunnels connected different parts of the map. By that point, however, it was far too late to put that knowledge to good use. There is no meaningful post-game exploration or opportunity to revisit unfinished activities once the story concludes. The inconsistent way locations are unlocked makes matters worse. Some areas require specific vehicle upgrades, which is perfectly reasonable. Others are arbitrarily gated behind story progression, often with little indication that anything has changed. Vegetation blocking a potential shortcut might simply disappear, or a character might open a gate much later in the story. Eventually, I stopped trying to explore creatively. Too often, what looked like a promising shortcut turned into a lengthy detour ending at yet another story-locked passage. Rather than rewarding curiosity, the game gradually discouraged it. [h2] Then there's the upgrade progression. [/h2] The game uses two currencies: money and junk. Money is plentiful, to the point that completing the main missions alone provides more than enough to purchase most mid-tier equipment. Junk, on the other hand, requires considerably more deliberate effort to collect. That wouldn't necessarily be a problem if the higher-tier upgrades offered meaningful improvements. Unfortunately, I found some of the progression difficult to justify. The junk costs of advanced engines and suspension upgrades rise di