Russian Car Driver 2: ZIL 130

In Brief

Russian Car Driver 2: ZIL 130 is the sequel to the first one, which we received as a game give away last December 10th HERE. It received an 84% positive rating from 19 votes. Today's game has various improvements over the original, including several modes of game play, so, if you liked the original, this one will certainly be worth downloading. The Steam community give this a positive rating, but there is only one English review which is negative. For £0.79/$0.99 this would be IMO a fantastic bargain; however, we are lucky enough to get this 'free standing' version for £0.00/$0.00 today.

You can see several in-game videos of game play HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE & HERE.

Introduction:

It’s not Grand theft Auto, but if you like open world vehicle based games with the ability to customize your vehicle, and play several other modes of play, this is well worth downloading. I'm really surprised it's so cheap on Steam.

The Game:

Russian Car Driver 2: ZIL 130 has several modes of play including a Campaign, Parking, Traffic, Climbing, Rally and Championship modes; (the latter two are locked at the start of the game).

Modes of Play:

Career/ Campaign Mode:

The campaign or career mode has three difficulty levels. Depending on which one you choose, you will start the game with a certain amount of money i.e 10000 Rubles in easy difficulty, 5000 rubles in medium difficulty and minus 10000 rubles in hard mode *so you'll need to work hard to become solvent and then be able to upgrade your vehicle). There are two modes of play in the campaign mode. These are Arcade and Simulator. The main difference between the two modes are that the Arcade mode Gasoline, Fatigue, Damage and Skills are disabled, so you can drive like a maniac, crash and basically run free across the whole open world, smashing down fences and other destructible objects. In the Simulation mode, crashing will cost you as you'll need to repair your vehicle . if you don't, you may break down and be unable to complete the mission you are on. Also, you need to keep an eye on your petrol/gasoline usage and make sure you fill up regularly, using some of the money you earn. When you start the campaign you can choose various garage designs, which will cost you some of the rubles you start with (assuming you choose the easy or medium difficulties). When you are inside your garage you can also modify the look of your vehicle as well as the backgrounds. All of these cost you in-game money, which you'll earn by completing various tasks that you'll pick up via the in game phone (much like you do if you've ever played Grand Theft Auto IV or V. There's also lots of information available while in garage mode, including the mode you are in, the amount of money you have left, the level you are at, your reputation, experience, how long you've traveled on the road, the number of crashes you've had, the number of orders you have completed, the number of licenses you have, the number of drivers, the number of found books and puzzles and the amount of help in each region. There are twelve targets to attain in campaign mode, these can be seen in the third image below. The main aim of the campaign mode is to pick up and deliver goods. You can change the camera view as well as turn on the head lights and wipers as well as select from various radio stations via the icons present on the right side of the HUD. There appears to be a gear change level icon as well, but i think that only works in the simulation mode, which I've not tried yet.

Parking:

The parking mode includes 21 levels in the beginner season and each level is scored on points, i.e. 100 = bronze, 160 = silver and 210 = gold. Once you've completed season 1 you will unlock the expert season 2 . I don't know how many levels this includes as I've not completed season 1. This sees you driving through set courses with cones directing you to a finish box. Avoid hitting the cones. and get to the end within a specified time to earn bronze, silver or gold awards. Hitting cones will give you a time penalty. As you progress, the routes become a lot more difficult to navigate quickly.

Traffic:

The traffic mode is similar to the parking mode with respect to the number of levels and seasons. In this mode you have various tasks to complete each level, for example traveling a specific distance such as 1000m, avoiding any traffic and make sure you don’t run out of petrol and try to complete the level in a decent time. There are bonus pickups that will give you more time to complete the level. If you hit a vehicle a collision notice will appear and you will go back to the main menu. Other tasks include completing a number of near misses and not crossing over to the oncoming traffic. Stats are shown at the end of each level showing the number of near misses, the number of times you crossed over into oncoming traffic etc.

Climbing:

The climbing mode is also similar to the parking mode with respect to the number of levels and seasons, though there appears to be an extra level included. As the name suggests, your truck is tasked to climb a hill with various obstacles to over come. My first attempt at level one saw me tumbling over a cliff edge. Quite challenging, and enough replayabilty to keep you entertained for some time. There are 22 levels to complete in stage one. Once completed you unlock a harder mode called stage 2.

Rally and Championship:

As these can’t be played until you’ve completed the parking mode, I cant say anything about them, but I presume they will include a cross country and road racing modes.

After your first game play experience, the next time you boot up the game a message from the developer appears asking if you would write a review which they could use to improve the game. If you agree, your browser is redirected to Google Play where you can post a review of the game. It also looks like you can download a version of the game for free that contains adverts from Google play.

Conclusion:

The multitude of game modes really adds to this £0.79 game. Personally if I was to purchase it via Steam I would say its worth a couple of pounds/dollars at the very least, and in my opinion this is one of the better mid week games we’ve been given since mid week games were restarted last November. It’s also definitely a big improvement on the first in the series. The only negative I found with this game, and to be honest, it's more a bug bear; whenever you completed one of the levels in the Traffic, Hill and Parking modes you'd go back to the main menu instead of automatically going to the next level or at least the level map. I'd score this a decent 8 out of 10 for replayability and lots of different game modes. Graphically its quite old, but still looks decent enough to pay. sort of around the Grand Theft Auto 3 graphically.