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Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing

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"Big Rigs" redirects here. For other uses, see Big Rig (disambiguation).

Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing
Developer(s)Stellar Stone
Publisher(s)GameMill Publishing
Producer(s)Sergey Titov[1]
Designer(s)Artem Mironovsky[1]
Programmer(s)
  • Denis Julitov
  • Sergey Titov[1]
Artist(s)
  • Yaroslav Kulov
  • Svetlana Slavinskaya
  • Peter Jameson
  • Tim Maletsky[1]
Composer(s)Alex Burton[1]
Platform(s)Windows
Release
  • NA: November 20, 2003
Genre(s)Racing
Mode(s)Single-player

Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing is a 2003 racing video game developed by Stellar Stone and published by GameMill Publishing. The player controls a semi-trailer truck (a "big rig") and races a stationary opponent through checkpoints on US truck routes. Stellar Stone, based in California, outsourced the game's development to Ukraine, and the game was released in an unfinished state on November 20, 2003. Due to a multitude of bugs and lack of proper gameplay, Big Rigs was critically panned, became the worst-rated game on review aggregator websites Metacritic and GameRankings, and has frequently been cited as one of the worst video games of all time by gaming publications.

Gameplay

[edit]
A big rig climbing a steep mountain

Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing is a racing video game.[2][3] Although the game's packaging states the objective as racing over US truck routes to be the first to deliver cargo and avoid arrest by the police, the game features no law enforcement. The player chooses from four playable semi-trailer trucks ("big rigs") and five truck routes, although selecting the fourth route will cause the game to crash. Once selected, the player navigates their truck through checkpoints using the arrow keys. Driving in reverse allows the truck to accelerate indefinitely, while releasing the associated key will instantly halt it.[2][4]

There is no time limit to complete a race, and the opponent does not move.[a] The player's truck can pass through the opponent and all objects placed on the route due to a lack of collision detection. Off-roading bears no traction penalty, hills can be ascended and descended without affecting the truck's speed, and traversal is possible in the void outside the game map. Completing a race rewards the player with an image of a trophy bearing the grammatically incorrect phrase "You're winner !" [sic].[2][4]

Development and release

[edit]

The development of Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing was commissioned by Stellar Stone, a company based in Santa Monica, California, and founded in late 2000 that outsourced game development to Eastern European countries like Russia.[2][6] Sergey Titov, the chief executive officer of TS Group Entertainment, licensed his Eternity game engine to Stellar Stone in exchange for a "large chunk of the company".[7][8] According to him, Big Rigs was developed by a team in Ukraine.[7] Although Titov is credited as the producer and co-programmer of the game, he claimed that he had neither much input on the development, nor the possibility to halt the game's release.[1][7] He stated that publisher GameMill Publishing initially sought to release one racing game stock keeping unit but later decided to split it in two—Big Rigs and Midnight Race Club—and shipped Big Rigs in what Titov believed was a pre-alpha state.[7] The game was released on November 20, 2003, for Windows and distributed exclusively through Wal-Mart stores.[2][9][10] Titov later offered to replace the game with any Activision Value title for buyers sending him their game copy, sales receipt, and registration card, which twenty people did.[2]

Reception

[edit]

Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing received "overwhelming dislike", according to the review aggregator website Metacritic.[11] Based on five critic reviews, the site calculated a weighted average rating of 8/100, its lowest ever.[2][11] The game also stood as the all-time worst game on GameRankings.[12] Big Rigs has been cited as one of the worst video games of all time by GameSpot (2004),[13] PC Gamer (2010 and 2019),[14][15] Kotaku (2012 and 2015),[16][17] Computer and Video Games (2013),[18] Hardcore Gamer (2014),[19] The Guardian (2015),[20] and GamesRadar+ (2017).[21] On X-Play's March 2004 "Games You Should Never Buy" segment, co-host Morgan Webb described Big Rigs as "the worst game ever made" and refused to score it, as the program's rating system did not allow for a zero score.[22][23] Steve Haske of GameZone regarded it as the "most abysmal" racing game in 2011.[3]

Alex Navarro reviewed Big Rigs for GameSpot in January 2004 and criticized the game's high number of bugs (including the absence of collision detection, enemy movement, and game physics), lack of proper gameplay, and poor truck controls.[4] Additionally, he labeled the game as "easily one of the worst-looking PC games released in years" and "almost completely broken and blatantly unfinished in nearly every way", declaring that Big Rigs was "as bad as your mind will allow you to comprehend".[4] Navarro rated the game a 1/10 (described as "abysmal"), the lowest score GameSpot allowed and had up to that point.[4][24] He later argued that GameSpot should have introduced a 0/10 rating for Big Rigs.[24] The game remained the only one to have received a 1/10 rating from GameSpot until 2013's Ride to Hell: Retribution.[10] In the site's 2004 year-end accolades, Big Rigs was named the "Flat-Out Worst Game" and the editors stated that they would henceforth use the game's winning trophy to represent the award.[13]

In 2014, Alex Carlson of Hardcore Gamer remarked that, because Big Rigs lacked a challenge, incentive to play, and ability to lose, it could not be accurately described as a game.[19] According to Steven Strom of Ars Technica, "Big Rigs isn't just a failure of programming (thanks to numerous bugs and crashes). It's a failure of creativity."[25] Hardcore Gaming 101's Paul Chenevert was torn between calling Big Rigs "hilariously campy or just shamefully terrible".[2]

Legacy

[edit]

Jason Schreier, writing for Kotaku in 2012, opined that the humorous video accompanying Navarro's Big Rigs review "immortalized" the game.[16] A satirical review on Angry Video Game Nerd significantly contributed to the game's popularity.[26] Big Rigs has attracted a cult following, with yourewinner.com forming a dedicated fansite.[2] David Houghton of GamesRadar attributed the game's notoriety to its bugs, saying that, otherwise, "Big Rigs would simply be an unremarkable, long-forgotten racing also-ran, rather than the festival of hilarity it currently stands as".[27] Titov went on to work for Riot Games on League of Legends before releasing The War Z in December 2012.[16] In September 2008, he stated that he was still in possession of the source code for Big Rigs and Eternity, but could not release the former because the game was still owned by Stellar Stone and GameMill.[7]

The NYU Game Center exhibited Big Rigs as part of its Bad Is Beautiful: An Exhibition Exploring Fascinatingly Bad Games at the NYU Game Center in April 2012.[28] In January 2015, Navarro performed a speedrun of the game for the Awesome Games Done Quick charity event.[17][29] The English test of the 2022 Polish Matura featured an excerpt from a Big Rigs review.[26]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ With a "1.0" patch dated November 2003, the opponent starts driving along the road but stops before the finish line.[2][5]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d e f Stellar Stone (November 20, 2003). Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing (Windows). GameMill Publishing. Scene: Credits.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Chenevert, Paul (April 30, 2009). "Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing". Hardcore Gaming 101. Archived from the original on January 27, 2021. Retrieved July 22, 2021.
  3. ^ a b Haske, Steve (November 16, 2010). "The Most Abysmal Racing Games Ever". GameZone. Archived from the original on November 15, 2011.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Navarro, Alex (January 14, 2004). "Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing Review". GameSpot. Archived from the original on October 27, 2013. Retrieved September 10, 2017.
  5. ^ "Support". Stellar Stone. 2003. Archived from the original on December 6, 2003.
  6. ^ "Company". Stellar Stone. Archived from the original on December 6, 2003.
  7. ^ a b c d e "Q and A with Sergey Titov, CEO of TS Group". yourewinner.com. September 21, 2008. Archived from the original on July 29, 2020. Retrieved July 26, 2020.
  8. ^ Titov, Sergey (March 3, 2000). "Eternity 3D Engine". TS Group Entertainment. Archived from the original on December 3, 2003.
  9. ^ "Week of 11/16/2003". GameSpot. Archived from the original on December 4, 2003.
  10. ^ a b Gerstmann, Jeff; O'Dwyer, Danny; VanOrd, Kevin; Watters, Chris; Mihoerck, Dan; Tay, Erick; Kish, Mary; Shaw, Josh (February 11, 2015). 1 out of 10: The Worst Games Ever Reviewed on GameSpot. GameSpot. Event occurs at 2:24–5:03. Archived from the original on March 11, 2015. Retrieved September 10, 2017.
  11. ^ a b c "Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing". Metacritic. Archived from the original on September 14, 2023. Retrieved September 14, 2023.
  12. ^ McDonell, Jess; Tran, Edmond (November 24, 2014). The Gist – 5 Broken Games That Launched Anyway. GameSpot. Event occurs at 3:18–4:32. Archived from the original on July 26, 2020. Retrieved July 26, 2020.
  13. ^ a b "Flat-Out Worst Game". GameSpot. 2004. Archived from the original on December 29, 2004.
  14. ^ Cobbett, Richard (September 30, 2010). "The 15 worst PC games of all time". PC Gamer. p. 3. Archived from the original on June 5, 2022. Retrieved June 6, 2022.
  15. ^ Kelly, Andy; Senior, Tom (June 25, 2019). "22 of the worst PC games of all time". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on July 26, 2020. Retrieved July 26, 2020.
  16. ^ a b c Schreier, Jason (December 19, 2012). "The War Z Mess: Every Crazy Detail We Know So Far [UPDATE]". Kotaku. Archived from the original on October 6, 2019. Retrieved October 6, 2019.
  17. ^ a b Klepek, Patrick (January 9, 2015). "Watch Someone Beat One Of The Worst Games Ever Made In Three Minutes". Kotaku. Archived from the original on July 26, 2020. Retrieved July 26, 2020.
  18. ^ Wilson, Iain (May 25, 2013). "The 21 worst games of all time". Computer and Video Games. Archived from the original on May 26, 2013.
  19. ^ a b Carlson, Alex (January 2, 2014). "How the Worst Game of 2013 Is Actually Better Than Big Rigs". Hardcore Gamer. Archived from the original on July 26, 2020. Retrieved July 26, 2020.
  20. ^ Stuart, Keith; Kelly, Andy; Parkin, Simon (October 15, 2015). "The 30 worst video games of all time – part one". The Guardian. Archived from the original on October 7, 2022. Retrieved October 7, 2022.
  21. ^ "The 50 worst games of all time: Page 5". GamesRadar+. August 9, 2017. Archived from the original on June 8, 2020. Retrieved July 26, 2020.
  22. ^ Satterfield, Shane (March 23, 2004). "Games You Should Never Buy". G4. Archived from the original on April 6, 2005.
  23. ^ Johnson, Stephen (November 12, 2007). "Nugget From The Net". G4. Archived from the original on January 10, 2013.
  24. ^ a b Navarro, Alex (November 1, 2004). Frightfully Bad Games. GameSpot. Event occurs at 3:02–3:35. Archived from the original on July 26, 2020. Retrieved July 26, 2020.
  25. ^ Strom, Steven (August 7, 2016). "What I learned playing Metacritic's all-time worst-scoring PC games". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on September 11, 2016. Retrieved September 10, 2017.
  26. ^ a b Gańko, Jakub (May 9, 2022). "Matura 2022: Big Rigs, jedna z najgorszych gier wszech czasów, na egzaminie z angielskiego" [Matura 2022: Big Rigs, one of the worst games of all time, on the English exam]. CD-Action (in Polish). Archived from the original on October 7, 2022. Retrieved October 7, 2022.
  27. ^ Houghton, David (September 6, 2011). "Good glitches, bad glitches, and why patches are really the gamer's enemy". GamesRadar+. Archived from the original on February 8, 2016. Retrieved October 6, 2019.
  28. ^ McLean, Owen (April 12, 2012). "Why It's Okay That GoldenEye Totally Sucks". Kotaku. Archived from the original on October 5, 2019. Retrieved October 16, 2019.
  29. ^ Navarro, Alex (January 8, 2015). "Alex Did a 'Speedrun' of Big Rigs for Charity". Giant Bomb. Archived from the original on March 11, 2015. Retrieved September 10, 2017.
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