Retrospective of Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing
“At least I know where bottom of the ocean is.”
Sergey Titov, on Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing.
By Patrick S. Baker
“Bottom of the ocean” is correct. This 2003 racing game has an aggregate 8 out of 100 score on Metacritic and reportedly a 1 out of 10 on the now-defunct Gamerrankings.com website. Both of these scores are the lowest in history. One reviewer stated that “Big Rigs is so devoid of design, game play, structure, aesthetic or functioning technology that it can’t be called a game at all.”
All this begs the question as to how such an atrocity was developed and then unleashed on an unsuspecting public. The game was commissioned by Stellar Stone, a video game development company founded in 2000 and based in Santa Monica, California.
Apparently Stellar Stone would outsource, or offshore, all the actual game development to small outfits in either Russia or Ukraine. The budgets for these games could be as low as $15,000 U.S. Dollars. One of the co-owners of Stellar Stone was Sergey Titov of TS Group Entertainment. Titov licensed TS Group’s Eternity game engine to Stellar Stone for a large part of the company.
Big Rigs was outsourced to an unnamed company in Ukraine with a low budget and Stellar Stone got every kopiyok’s worth of its investment. The game was released in November 2003. In the game, notionally, the player drives a semi-trailer truck, a “big rig” in a race against other big rigs on American roads. The goal is to be the first to deliver cargo and avoid being stopped by the police.
Big Rigs fails from the start. The player may select one of five routes to drive in the race. But if they select the fourth route, the game crashes. The opponents do not move from the starting line, so there is no race. In a patch released in November of 2003, the opponent does start to race, but stops for no reason before the finish line.
There are no police anywhere in the game. The player may drive anywhere and through all obstacles like they are incorporeal. Lastly, driving in reverse allows the player to accelerate indefinitely, like to the speed of light and beyond. But release the accelerator and the truck halts immediately. Complete a ‘race’ and the player gets a trophy with “You’re winner!” (sic) (NOT “You’re the winner”) on it.
The failure of this game is legendary. It has made most, if not every, published list of the worst games. In 2004, X-Play’s Morgan Webb declared it “the worst game ever made” and stated it deserved a zero score.
Yet, somehow, in defiance of all logic and good taste, Big Rigs has a certain level of popularity. It also has a cult following with a dedicated website: yourwinner.com. This regard seems to come from the various sarcastically “favorable” reviews the game has received such as from the Angry Video Game Nerd on YouTube.
I usually do not inject myself into these retrospectives. I am a historian by both education and disposition and try to present things as objectively as possible. But, after all, I’d read about Big Rigs, I had to give this atrocity a try. Well, the “game” does have a certain short-term, nihilistic appeal, with the ability to drive anywhere and pretty much defy the laws of nature.
But that idea of fun soon palls. Still after running (I won’t say playing) the game, I must say that operating any other game besides Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing makes the gamer a “You’re Winner!”
Patrick S. Baker is a former US Army Field Artillery officer and retired Department of Defense employee. He has degrees in History, Political Science and Education. He has been writing history, game reviews and science-fiction professionally since 2013. Some of his other work can found at Sirius Science Fiction, Sci-Phi Journal, Armchair General and Historynet.com
Sources:
Angry Video Game Nerd “Big Rigs Over the Road Racing for PC”
G4TV.com (23 March 2004) “Games You Should Never Buy”
GameSpot. (14 January 2004). “Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing Review”.
GameSpot. (24 November 2014). The Gist – 5 Broken Games That Launched Anyway.
Hardcore Gamer (2 January 2014). “How the Worst Game of 2013 Is Actually Better Than Big Rigs”.
Hardcore Gaming 101 (30 April 2009) “Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing”
Metacritic.com Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing
Yourewinner.com. (21 September 2008). “Q and A with Sergey Titov, CEO of TS Group”