The Cheap-Ass Gaming Garbage Man Reviews: Cluster Truck

Leaping off the big rig and landing on the truck ahead of it, the rig crashes behind me causing a pile-up and exploding the other trucks on the bridge.

Not allowing a major traffic accident to slow me down, I continue forward, gaining momentum as I sprint off the top of the speeding truck and on the back of the next truck. 

I keep hopping forward, truck top to truck top, my goal laying at the end.

I see another pile-up ahead. The rigs that escaped are speeding away.

One chance. Only one chance to get this right.

I run up and over the increasingly dense clump of crashed big rigs, toppling up and over each other.

I jump and I soar through the air like a leaf in the wind.

I’ll make it. I have to.

This is Cluster Truck and it is a cluster fuck of trucks.

I never made it.

Cluster Truck is a FPS action puzzler that has you jumping from big rig to big rig, avoiding the ground and obstacles, all on your way to the finish line. It’s a blend of The Witness and The Floor is Lava. And it is awesome.

It could also be considered the Dark Souls of the FPS puzzler. You will die a lot. The first world will give you a taste of your death, and then from world 2 on, it’s over. You’ll die maybe 2 or 3 dozen times each level.

When I first saw the trailer, it explained everything I needed to know about this game: You jump from truck top to truck top, avoiding obstacles as they cruise along, smashing into shit and fucking your shit up.

You are God of trucks. You are not pleased.

There is quite a bit of control while you’re in the air, but it’s not as easy as it sounds. You can only touch trucks in Cluster Truck. If anything else so much as brushes against you, you’re dead and the level restarts anew.

You do have some options when it comes to jumping off the trucks. By jumping off the back or sides of any big rig, you can give yourself an extra bump into the air. Speed and direction make big differences on where you'll land and far you'll go.

The graphics are okay. It’s kind of like Firewatch, just not as gay. The cel-shaded graphics aren't too distracting, and it does remind me of potato mode on a PC. But the framerate and action keeps up even as hundreds of big rigs are shoving and exploding themselves in every direction.

A Bridge Too Far.

It also reminds me a little of Race the Sun, an excellent racer that had you chasing the sun for your solar powered vehicle to keep going. The graphics are about the same, and the idea is a simple but original one.

There is abilities that you can unlock and equip, though I never needed them mostly because I haven’t beat the game and needed to use them yet. Maybe someday, but for today, I kind of know what I’m up against here.

Again, like Race the Sun, these abilities can mean the difference between blowing through a level and using every ounce of skill left in your sweaty palms.

Only a couple of glitches, all of which are fun in a game like this.

While you start to master every world, the next world throws in another round of obstacles. By the time I got to World 4: Laser World, I was pulling out all sorts of abilities to try and make it through. This is a game of reflex and skill and you have to have both if you want to make it to the next level.

I feel like the jump button should have been one of the triggers, not a button. I need both thumb to control my truck jumping asshole, and I don’t like that I have switch my right thumb from the directional pad to the A button constantly. It can make for some nice fuck-ups, ones that I’m sure PC players don’t have to endure.

Just another day for Jean Claude Van Damme.

Rating: 4 out of 5. Who knew that jumping from the top of trucks barrelling down different environments would be so damn fun? Cluster Truck takes the idea of living life like Van Damme to a whole new level.

Yes, the controls aren’t perfect, but it does way better than it would if I was really jumping off of trucks going at any speed. And there’s no continues when I do that in real life.

Cluster Truck is recommended for fans of action puzzlers, FPS madness, and adrenaline junkies. It got so tense at times that I cracked my chair under my ass cheeks. Either that or I’m just practicing to be a trucker myself.

This was the cheap-ass gaming Garbage Man. The next review will be good, I promise.