Alaskan Road Truckers: Highway Edition Review

Alaska may be one of the most beautiful places on earth, but it also is one of the scariest. It has 70 active volcanoes that could erupt at any time. It has the record for the biggest earthquake (9.2 on the Richter scale) in American history. And it’s so big that if it were a country, it would be one of the largest in the world. So, it’s safe to say that traversing around it can be quite hard, what with the distances and the bad weather conditions in the winter. 

It’s lucky then that you’re an Alaskan road trucker; one of the hardest truckers in the world…

Trucking games are extremely popular, picking up huge audience numbers worldwide. But Alaskan Road Truckers: Highway Edition is a little different to the norm, as this game not only lets you drive heavy loads around the beautiful countryside and towns, but also adds in some RPG elements to the game, with that focusing on survival. There is also the opportunity to build a trucking empire as well, so you can be the king or queen trucker of Alaska. 

First of all, you pick your character, working from a template of different avatars, before giving your character a name, and heading off into the wilds. Your first task is to deliver a trailer, pulling it with your truck across the map. How this works in the tutorial is that you action a series of functions, connecting your trailer to the rig in the first person, attaching cables, pressing buttons. When that is done you start the engine, release the handbrake, and hit the open road.

Driving is fine in Alaskan Road Truckers: Highway Edition, without ever being anything special. Speed limits are in play, but there is no punishment, and whilst it is never great to hit things, there is a lack of discipline needed with this one. 

What you will need to be aware of though is your fuel, which depletes fast over distances, your food levels which can be topped up at restaurants or stores, and the need for sleep. For the most part, in Alaskan Road Truckers: Highway Edition you’ll normally find yourself delivering one trailer to a specific place, with a series of jobs you can take for hard cash. When you deliver the goods you get some stars for how you park the rig and trailer. Then it’s all about unplugging it all, and starting over again.

As summer turns to winter the conditions get worse. If you get into trouble you can call for assistance on your CB radio, but if funds are low you will need to sort things out for yourself. You get to brave the cold, attempting to fix any problems with some mini-game-type conditions.

There are also management-type objectives for you to get obsessed with, building up your HQ and getting workshops to do repairs. And of course, there is the ability to host a whole range of rigs as you play. In Alaskan Road Truckers: Highway Edition, there are also skill trees to complete, filled with experience points that let you choose your focus, hitting on driving or maintenance for example. There are a ton of hours worth of gameplay to get obsessed with here and it’s easy to let the game pull you in. 

Alaskan Road Truckers: Highway Edition looks okay but it’s far from a brilliant visual representation of this great state. Sometimes it can feel quite empty and a bit flat in texture. I mean it’s all there and it all works, but it’s never awe-inspiring to drive around. That is a shame. It’s not helped by the fact that the NPCs you meet aren’t the best looking either, though the sound is good with all the engine noise you would want. The radio station has a load of licensed tracks that will keep your spirits up as you drive through the snowy wilderness. 

Trucking fans will have a lot of love for Alaskan Road Truckers: Highway Edition. It’s not as epic as others in the genre, but it does a good job with adding the RPG elements and management bits. The driving is fine without being particularly fun, but you should like the extra elements like parking and repairing the rig in the wilderness.

Personally, the visuals fail to excite – I wanted this to be more spectacular, more inspiring to drive through, but for the truckers out there, Alaskan Road Truckers: Highway Edition provides plenty of content.