Originally released in October 2016, Giant Machines 2017 is a port of a 9 and-a-half year-old PC game, and frankly it looks like it. Disappointing visuals aside, it's a by-the-numbers simulation of fixing and operating huge industrial machines.
Right at the start you hop into a small tug vehicle and get blasted by the radio–all I could do was change stations and not just turn it off, so I was soon looking for the volume controls. There are 8 stations playing songs by artists I've never heard of, except 'Kevin's Classics' which plays actual classical music and jazz, some of which I have heard before. Some of the songs are actually pretty good, and if you get played something you hate, you can always flick to another station. Any which way, a selection of radio stations seems a bit extraneous in a sim like this.
There are 14 varying missions set in places as diverse as a quarry to a Florida spaceport. The scenery is extremely basic, and although the machines themselves are complex, the parts that they're constructed from are low detail by 2026 standards.
Despite some vehicles having quite complex controls, the hook on the mobile crane cannot be swivelled, so lining up a load can be a matter of bumping it around until it lines up with the group of containers you're trying to stack it on.
When on foot I found the bizarre problem of some gaps between handrails being so narrow that it was a real squeeze to fit through–like your character is a bit umm... rotund.
The vehicles & machines appear to be based on real models but are unlicenced, so they're manufactured by cheeky spoof copycat company names like LEBEER (LIEBHERR), KOMITSU (KOMATSU) and of course MASA (NASA).
The vehicles, in order of size:
The THUGZ ZM Tow is used to get from base to giant machine to the next giant machine. Surprisingly it's not painfully slow and I had as much fun drifting around corners as I have some racing games.
Used for clearing debris and snow, the Bulldozer is a 170-ton monster, a simple machine to use you can raise and lower the blade and that's about it.
The Demolition Shear (Excavator) should probably be the toughest vehicle in the game, but it's a delicate little flower, and over-stress its jaws or the excavator's arm and it'll fall apart like it's made of Lego.
The Haul Truck is the size of a large house and handles just about as well as one. Its saving grace is that it can carry the ore you mine and dump it neatly, mainly thanks to its tight steering lock.
The Mobile Crane is absolutely massive, and takes a full 45 seconds to unfurl its cab and stabilising jacks before it can start to extend its massive boom and be used. It'd be a fun machine to use if you could swivel loads.
The Hydraulic Excavator "T-REX" is another giant 20m-tall digger, with a stairway that you have to raise before use, and a front-facing bucket with opening jaws. It's not as fragile as the Demolition Shear but can still be broken if overstressed while digging.
The Crawler–Transporter is a decent representation of the 2 crawler vehicles that carried all the space shuttles from the VAB (Vehicle Assembly Building) to the launch pad. I believe the same 2,700 ton vehicle carried all the Saturn rockets to the launch pad for the Apollo program too, so they're a real bit of history.
The Bucket-Wheel Excavator is the biggest machine in the game, a true giant. It chews tons of ore at a time off the wall of the mine, but sadly sounds like a teeny 2-stroke lawnmower.
The vehicles are mostly fun to use–once you get used to the controls–except the "Demolition Shear" (an excavator with a shear attachment) that–despite being the size of a building and requiring 3 ladders to reach the cab–is more fragile than a politician's ego, and extremely fiddly to use, mainly because you can't use the excavator's arm and tracks at the same time as the controls are divided into Driver and Operator modes.
Although graphically challenged by today's standards and full of glitches and badly-finished scenery that you can get stuck on, Giant Machines actually feels a bit too realistic at times, with the movement speeds of vehicles, crane booms and hooks etc feeling painfully slow–albeit due to their sheer size. There's also a weird bug that means you have to steer left & right before getting certain vehicles to move.
One Space Shuttle mission has a bizarre section where you find yourself donning a HAZMAT suit and carrying toxic waste barrels to a container. Not sure why this was included, because it just highlights the game's poor graphics.
There's an amusing achievement for blowing up the Space Shuttle (too soon?) before it launches (unlike NASA). We knew about this before we started the mission, so actually tried to destroy it by swinging one of the solid rocket boosters at it like a wrecking ball–which oddly enough and given the fragility of certain vehicles, didn't work. We needn't have worried about missing this achievement though, because en-route to the launch pad you have to drive the Shuttle-laden crawler up and down two ramps, while keeping the platform level with the triggers and shoulder buttons. Anyone who completes these two ramps first time without blowing up the Shuttle should be given a job at NASA immediately!
I did actually have some fun with Giant Machines 2017, and if big machines are your thing I wouldn't completely discount it–even at a rather optimistic price of £18.49. Its BIG problem is its poor visuals, a lack of enhancement or optimisation for the consoles, and games such as Roadcraft and Snowrunner, which make it look even older than its 9 years.
Thanks to Playway, Code Horizon and PressEngine