Review: Giant Machines 2017

If you're obsessed with construction machines and big mechanical things, Giant Machines 2017 probably has something to offer you. Giant Machines 2017 is a game that simulates what it's like to drive, well, huge machines. These are machines like dump trucks, giant excavators with bucket wheels, cranes and that huge moving platform that dragged the space shuttle to its launch site.

I found the game bizarrely amusing in short bursts. It is buggy, not very attractive, and often requires the player to perform annoying, rather pointless tasks. Giant Machines also raises all kinds of questions about workers' safety. Does the giant excavator really have a 300-foot ladder going straight up without any safety features? And if so, who takes the job?

There is a certain novelty in the game as a whole. As with the appeal of shark movies in tornadoes, there is a crazy but sincere joy to play with monster machines. Despite the joy of operating huge mechanical constructions and the snapping narrator aside, the game takes itself far too seriously and focuses too much on misplaced mini goals. Anyone who looks at a game like this thinks, "Hé! That's a great idea!" probably does this because they want to break things up with huge equipment. There is some, but there is far too much repairing cables, replacing batteries and other annoying tasks that just stand in the way of driving the vehicles.

When you finally get behind the wheel of these powerful machines, the game chooses tempo at simulation level, without really providing any form of in-depth simulation. For example, you can control almost every aspect of the different vehicles with a control panel, but don't expect a loose band, over the top destructive rodeo. Instead, take a deep breath, think about life and think about your day as you literally drive from point A to point B at about one or two miles per hour.

The camera has a range of options, which are often all bad. If you look from the operator's cabin into some machines, you can hardly see what you're doing, and the third person's views are usually even worse. It doesn't stand out when you drive a giant dump truck, but for unusually shaped vehicles (such as the excavator) everything is clumsy.

Each vehicle has a radio with different music channels. One sounds like strange action film synthpop from the 80s, while the other seems to be Eastern European metal. They were all things I'd certainly never heard before. The songs are not very good, but I did enjoy the low budget equivalent of the standard triple A soundtrack.