So what is Roadcraft? It is a heavy equipment simulator where you work for a company that helps with recovery operations after natural disasters. You have to fix roads to allow supply convoys to get through, fix pipes to drain flooded areas, re-connect electricity, build bridges, repair dams, and more. The game is absolutely massive. Like, 100+ hours to fully complete, massive.
First off, I guess I should say that while I've played a fair bit of Mudrunner and Snowrunner, I never got too deep into them. They're just so slow and overly complicated to control and constantly getting stuck and tipping over got old for me pretty fast.
Roadcraft, in comparison, is greatly simplified from those games. It's still slow, and you still definitely get stuck and tip over a lot, but the controls are a lot more intuitive and the objectives are more straightforward and it's just a much more accessible game overall. The vehicles all still have a turning radius 50,000 miles wide and the controls still feel like you're a drunk blindfolded baby wearing boxing gloves desperately struggling to drive in a straight line despite only going 7 miles per hour, but you don't have to change gears or refuel or worry about anything else, really. There's no damage model, either, so you can't ruin your game by wrecking your truck. It's just much easier to play all around.
The core concept that makes Roadcraft different is that it isn't just a matter of getting from point A to point B like in past games - this time you can actually build roads anywhere you want to make getting around easier. This is huge. This is amazing. This is everything I ever dreamed of as a kid playing with Tonka trucks in the garden. Instead of "Oh god, how am I going to get this stupid piece of crap truck through this swamp?" you just go "Ha ha, fuck you swamp. I'm going to fill you with sand and never get stuck again!"
You really can build roads anywhere you want. It's crazy. Forest in the way? Cut all the trees down. Huge canyon between you and where you want to go? Fill it with sand! Or, y'know, build a bridge or something. That's what makes the game especially interesting. It's a problem solving game. You have objectives you have to complete, but how you do them is totally up to you. There's always a kind of obvious path the game expects you to take, but you can come up with your own ideas and really do whatever you want.
The reason why it works is because they were smart and made it all pretty dumbed down and easy. You don't have to manually load sand, for example, and instead can fill your truck with the push of a button as long as you're in range of a sand pit. This means you really can just load, dump, load, dump, load, dump a hundred times if you need to in order to fill in whatever swamp or river or canyon or anything else that's in your way. Flattening the sand piles to make a smooth road is also as easy as running a dozer over it a couple times.
Some folks feel this is too simple, but I think it's just right. The Construction Simulator games are way too anal about making you do everything precisely the way they want you to and they just aren't all that fun because it's way too tedious and boring. Roadcraft emphasizes the problem solving aspect instead of the work itself, and I love that. It's the same reason why Giants Software's Farming Simulator games are infinitely more fun than the other farm sim games that have come and gone - they let you do as much of the work as you want and then streamline the stuff you don't want to do. The Roadcraft devs were similarly smart. That might upset the hardcore Snowrunner fans, but they have opened up the game to a far bigger audience.
In addition to building roads, you also have to load and deliver cargo and there is some light forestry involved as well. The crane controls for loading trucks are intuitive and work well. And I have to say that cutting down trees and loading the logs into haulers works a lot better here than it does in the Farming Simulator games because the controls are better and the log physics don't freak out nearly as often in Roadcraft.
I do have some complaints, though. I still don't know why the controls have to feel this slow and sluggish and awful. Some of the maps are much better than others, too. The fourth map called Sunken is just absolutely miserable compared to the others, for example. And I know this is a weird complaint, but there could be like half as many objectives and the game would be better for it. Better pacing so you get to new stuff a little faster would be welcome. But the biggest issue is that the CPU drivers that deliver materials for you are the dumbest pieces of trash ever. I hate them so much.
See, you have to build roads in order to connect factories and supply points to other things on the map. And then you route out a path for CPU drivers to follow on those roads and bridges and whatever else you built. But the CPU drivers are idiots that constantly need babysitting and get stuck everywhere even though your own vehicles pass over the same stuff with no problems. It gets really, really, really frustrating. I'm not too proud to admit that I got fed up and just pushed them through from behind more than a few times in order to complete an objective and then never bothered to actually fix the route. Screw these guys, seriously.
In spite of that, I have had a really fun time with Roadcraft overall. It's undeniably slow and time consuming, but when you come up with a plan and execute it it's really satisfying like few other games can be. It is also perfectly priced at $40 for the base game, which, even if you only play half of it, you still definitely get your money's worth. There's going to be a bunch of DLC, but I'd have to say I don't think I'm that interested in getting more stuff to play with. The base game is already huge.
I will make it clear that it definitely won't be for everyone, though. It's really slow and somewhat tedious and the controls are funky and the CPU drivers will frustrate you, but when you get into the rhythm of the gameplay and start thinking outside the box and solving problems in unique and interesting ways, Roadcraft can be a truly amazing experience. If you're interested in games like Snowrunner or Construction Simulator but find they're too hardcore, Roadcraft is a nice compromise that is worth a look.
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