Food Truck Simulator at its core, is a very enjoyable simulation game, for fans of “Overcooked” and “PlateUp!” you’ll feel right at home. The overall goal is to take orders and complete them, each one has a time limit, it’s all familiar territory if you’ve played similar games. What surprised me about Food Truck Simulator however, is the fact that it’s overly ambitious to explore other types of simulation games within a food truck simulation game- to which I’ll explain later. I believe I’ve played enough to discuss where this game succeeds and falls flat.
First of all, the performance is abysmal, this also applies to the driving and steering. In its current state, it doesn’t matter how strong your PC is, you will most likely struggle half the time. Whether it be from driving around, to pouring sauce on your pizza, the game struggles to process things and it’s blatantly obvious. That being said, it definitely is playable, it’s more of an inconvenience that you wished didn’t exist. The silver lining however, is that the developers are aware of this and are working on a fix, but it still leaves room to question why it wasn’t worked on sooner, game launch is always important, early bird reviews are always the most impactful and if people are met with many reasons not to return, it can be extremely detrimental to the games success moving forward.
Secondly, the game subtly tries to incorporate other simulation jobs from other familiar games and during these missions, it takes you away from the objective of the game, which is also the reason why you bought this game: to be a food truck owner. Let me explain. There is a mission early on in the game where you have to break into a garage and you have to lockpick your way in (Thief Simulator?), you then steal a hefty amount of money and sabotage a competitor’s food truck. In another mission, you have to work at a gas station and use a pressure hose to clean oil/fuel spills all around the station (Powerwash Simulator?). Your food truck also has to be topped up with fuel, otherwise you won’t be able to drive around the city (presumably, never actually reached empty tank myself), so you have to fuel your truck up in your garage or at the gas station (Gas Station Simulator?). I am surprised at these additions and would definitely be in the minority, as I found them to be decently fun. But it is undeniable that they all take away the true aspect of why you’re playing this game to begin with, to be a food truck owner! As many other people have mentioned, there is too much storytelling that you have to go through in the beginning, and too many deviations in the things you have to do that aren’t particularly related to owning a food truck.
Now onto what the game does well, basically everything else other than what I discussed above is simply amazing. You really do have fun while you complete orders, it’s all in the first person perspective too rather than a usual top-down view like similar games of the genre, it really makes you feel like you’re in the moment and you’re getting things done. Some mechanics are flawed, such as getting only 2 slices from a tomato, but in terms of the whole picture, I’m willing to overlook it. There is also a good sense of progression, you can customise your truck, the colour, the wheels, mirror, window tint, the decals etc but you can also upgrade your equipment which impact your time cooking. What doesn’t make sense to me however, is how the game economy works. You can earn 10-40 dollars on an order but to paint your garage walls cost 10 bucks per wall. Imagine selling a burger and then being able to afford a paint job, it doesn’t seem right but I guess I’m not fussed by it.
I think that the game has good food choices; burgers, pizza and sushi. However, the subjective downfall is that you have to do ALL of them. You become a food truck of many cuisines and in reality, you simply can’t do so many things. If they implemented a way to disable some cuisines or specialise in only one or two, the game would shine and the experience stays fun rather than being tedious and stressful. My advice is to remember that it’s a game at the end of the day and you shouldn’t expect everything to be realistic down to a tee.
Food Truck Simulator has insane potential, the problems are clearly brought up, not only by me, but by others too. The ball is in their court and I’m curious to see where this game goes. If you go in with the awareness of its current downfalls and you’re still okay with it, then trust me when I say that you’ll definitely enjoy the game. Sure, there are a lot of things that need work, but even in it’s current state I’m having fun with it and only hope that things get better over time.
Click HERE to purchase Food Truck Simulator on Steam!
Helrato, or Hel for short, is your typical young gamer from Australia who grew up with an older brother that introduced him to gaming. That same older brother would give him an unplugged controller and told him that he was playing, and that's how Helrato's journey into games started - by believing he was playing something when in fact he wasn't playing anything.
Helrato's favourite game franchises include Assassin's Creed, Age of Empires, Call of Duty, Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid. With his old favourite games of all time being Brigandine: The Legend of Forsena, Legaia 2 and Dark Chronicle (Dark Cloud 2). If you know those games, mad respect.
When he's not writing reviews, he's playing games, when he's not playing games, he's thinking about playing games, when he's thinking about playing games, he's at work - not playing games.
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