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"Truckity truck truck truck..."

On first glance, this title looks so much similar to the original with hardly any thing to differ. The plot this time around sees Ma being banged up behind bars, where you as one of her 4 children, must truck harder than before to raise enough cash to bribe and pay-off the Jurors on the trial. How to raise that cash? More of the same formula from the first game; buy some goods, truck to the best town, sell them at a shop for some Mega Buck profits before doing the same thing over on the next day. Now unlike the original, Big Mutha Truckers 2 adds a nice system of bonuses and multipliers. Shaking off the cops, making the biker gangs eat your dust...they all increase that bonus of yours. And it's not just those two events, as Truck Me Harder adds a UFO's tractor and gravity beam for you to avoid, as well as the travelling vagrant who wants a lift some place.

Now, thanks to listening to the advice of gamers at their forums, Empire took out the tedious feature of continuously talking to the bartender of a town just to learn what's selling for the highest price. Instead, a simple and much more easy to understand option is given to the player in the form of the Y Button. Hitting it will bring up the stats of the cities, showing you what prices things will fetch for. A lot more easier, eh?

Sadly, with all truck racers, handling is the big one. Trucks are usually commonly associated with big, clunky bricks (Big Rigs is the perfect example of what a bad trucking game is) who trot along at a slow speed, but has Big Mutha Truckers made it more dynamic and more fun? Well, they tried, bless them. Truth is, you can't make a game where the actual driving is loved, since you'd long to choose a slicker, faster car. Maybe a pick-up truck. Or a plane! Well, that'd take a way the whole purpose of calling it Big Mutha Truckers, wouldn't it?

The game on the whole is really good, but you can't help but look back on it and see that it was the same thing being played again and again; racing from point A to B, swerving about to ditch those biker hi-jackers, selling and buying the same goods...

Like the first game, it's really great and it's got the original idea, but let down by the fresh execution to make the game more appealing. But it does get the tip of my hat for trying to progress even further to that point

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/11/05