First-person platformer Clustertruck replicates the childhood joy of playing “the floor is lava” – some levels adopt the concept very literally. The difference between Clustertruck and what your younger-self played on the living room furniture much to your parents’ exasperation? Your path from start to finish is littered with identical, erratically-driven trucks, where falling off means instant failure.
Featuring over 100 levels to plough through, Clustertruck keeps the action moving briskly throughout, never lingering on any one novelty concept for too long before swiftly introducing a new wrinkle, such as lasers, or cannons that shoot trucks at you. Really, the only thing the game doesn’t do is release the trucks with trucks in their cabins and when they honk, they shoot trucks at you.
Clustertruck instantly signals its intentions of being zany action first, everything else last. From boot-up, everything is presented through delightfully simple visuals and a vibrant colour palette. The UI is refreshingly almost non-existent, firmly placing the focus on the hilariously bizarre truck-jumping mayhem.
Striving to be the ultimate one-more-try game, Clustertruck makes it devilishly easy to keep playing for a few more minutes; upon failing a level, a single press of the button puts you immediately back in the truck-hopping action. Couple this with the content-rich stylings of over 100 levels, Clustertruck will keep you entertained for a while. Furthering this, the game’s great sense of pace makes for many frantic moments of truck parkour.
Building up momentum to attempt long jumps is thrilling and at times stressful when the truck you’re aiming to land on suddenly tips over for no damn good reason at all. It’s difficult to get too mad about moments like these, because of the instant retry feature and the unexpected moments of hilarity responsible for foiling your run at the last second. Moments such as trucks spiralling uncontrollably into the air after being hit by a missile produce many laugh-out-loud moments due to the sheer absurdity of the action.
However, as hilarious as most failures are, regardless of whether it is the player’s or truck’s fault (often both), there are a small handful of levels that rely too heavily on luck to be overlooked. Clustertruck’s motley crew of truckers are terrible drivers. Trucks often bump into one another, fall off cliffs, and skid out of control at the slightest hint of inclement conditions. Most of the time, these moments of questionable safe driving practices elicit a chuckle or two, but some later levels are frustratingly difficult due to the trucks’ unpredictable behaviour.
For example, one level requires several trucks to fall down a chasm in a way that allows the players to jump from truck to truck as they fall towards the next platform at the chasm’s base. Too often, the trucks fell in an impassable formation, meaning it was impossible to complete the manoeuvres required to progress. I estimated well over 100 attempts went into this particular level, and very few of these attempts felt fair to the player. Thankfully, these levels are sparse, and the trucking erratic behaviour produces many more giggles than frustrated swears. Another silver lining to the unpredictable nature of Clustertruck is that it is difficult to commit levels to muscle memory, adding a natural variation to each level on repeated attempts
On launch, Clustertruck had its fair share of bugs and glitches, which included some minor performance issues and some crashes which halted progress. These have since been patched out, giving you the slick truck jumping simulator you deserve.
Above all else, Clustertruck is simply a fun game to play. Producing many laugh-out-loud moments thanks to its goofy concept, and plenty of satisfying, fast-paced platforming, Clustertruck is a trucking good time despite a couple moments of frustration.
Score: 4/5
It's Black, Back Again.
Mercs, Vectorman and ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron.
Makes sense to us.
