I’ll See You On The Fury Road
HIGH Taking a boss out in five seconds with two perfectly aimed headshots.
LOW Having my driver decide to steer the truck off a cliff for no reason.
WTF That… is a really big worm.
The developers at Runner Duck have a pretty amazing gameplay formula on their hands.
Starting with Bomber Crew, they built a title about a group of cartoon cuties flying a WW2 bomber in missions over occupied Europe. Each flyer has skills that improved their ability to shoot down enemy planes, drop bombs accurately, or repair broken parts of the bomber. It worked like a charm, so they did it again with Space Crew, which was almost the exact same game except with in space, and it was every bit the amazing experience its predecessor had been.
Imagine my delight when I discovered that those same developers were about to apply that winning formula to the most criminally underserved setting in gaming — adorable cuties driving a war rig around the wasteland, turning ornate death wagons into scrap… it’s a match made in heaven.
Badlands Crew puts players in the role of a commander in charge of reclaiming the wasteland from insane warlords. This is accomplished by taking on a series of missions — clear enemies out of areas, seize bases, escort trucks to their destination, and raid enemy convoys for their goods. Yes, all of these, to one degree or another, involve using the gun emplacements of a truck to blow up enemies, but there’s enough variety in the missions to keep things from ever getting boring, even after sinking dozens of hours into the experience.
Unlike their previous titles which put the plane or ship at the center of the screen and asked the player to maintain it via navigation and combat minigames on subscreens, Badlands Crew is a realtime experience through and through. Players actively navigate the wasteland, directing their tractor-trailer through the ruins of the old world. One can find the shattered remnants of a ski lift in one area, the bones of long-dead leviathans in another, and in one particularly memorable location, they can get air off of ramps made from of the roofs of houses that were buried by the ash of an exploding volcano centuries earlier.
Micromanaging the truck is the key to success in Badlands Crew. In addition to keeping the gun turrets manned, players need to have a solid driver to keep the thing running, a navigator to use the map and spot resources in the world, and yes, a drummer who constantly jams on their skins to keep everyone’s spirits up. As objectives are completed and the crew levels up, they can specialize in each role, unlocking useful perks. Drivers can sideswipe enemies off the road, Drummers can heal the crew and put out fires by summoning rainstorms, and Gunners can unlock a VATS-style targeting mode that slows time to a crawl so they can pinpoint exactly what part of an enemy vehicle they want to blast. The best-armed rig in the world won’t be much of a threat with its driver blasted out of his seat, after all.
Progressing through missions and destroying enemies rewards the player with the resources they’ll need to build blueprints they find out in the wild. At the start of the campaign, players will literally be using junk cannons lobbing scrap at their opponents. As they take down each enemy faction they’ll unlock different weapon types — flame from Pyros to wreck vehicle parts, toxic from Klowns to attack crews, blades from Vultures shred wheels, and projectiles from Gun Nutz to tear armor to pieces. Badlands Crew offers almost unlimited freedom in allowing the player to build any kind of rolling beast they want, mixing and matching until they find what works best in each situation.
While I couldn’t stop playing Badlands Crew — I put off finishing it for maybe a dozen hours, just doing random missions so I could have more chances to watch my crew tear opponents to pieces — it’s not without flaws. The biggest is the inability to directly steer the truck. I understand what the developers are going for — the player is giving commands, and it’s up to the crew to carry them out to the best of their ability — but the driving AI has enough quirks that offering a direct control option is close to a necessity. I can’t count the number of times I almost lost a mission because, for no clear reason, my driver decided to make a hard turn straight into a wall, damaging the rig and stunning my crew at a pivotal moment.
The other main issue is with the truck-building mechanic. While I certainly enjoyed building my murderwagons, I won’t claim to understand exactly how it works. The tutorial doesn’t do a fantastic job of explaining things — I’ll be given the notification that some piece of equipment is blocking people from being able to move around the truck, but the interface won’t highlight the offender. Likewise, Badlands Crew never clearly explains exactly how players are supposed to put a second story on their trucks, forcing me to muddle through tough skirmishes with a preposterously overloaded flatbed.
A not-insignificant part of this is certainly a me issue — the user-created trucks that show up as random enemy vehicles from time to time were invariably better designed than my jalopies, but I still feel the devs could have done more to make the construction process accessible.
Not since the Yakuza developers decided to make a Fist of the North Star game have I seen a better melding of developer and subject matter. Runner Duck’s penchant for making hectic management sims about intense action-adventure settings have reached a new high with Badlands Crew. This is the best Mad Max game we’ve had in ages, and given the increasing quality of their work, I can’t wait to see what the developers have in store for us next.
Rating: 8.5 out of 10
Disclosures: This game is developed by Runner Duck and published by Curve Games It is currently available on PC. Copies of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 50 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode. The game was completed. The game contains no multiplayer modes.
Parents: This game was not rated by the ESRB, but it’s basically a T and features an absolute ton of Fantasy Violence. There’s no shocking or offensive content in the game, no alcohol or drug use, just a countless examples of cars exploding or getting eaten by sandworms. While I can’t say it’s safe for everyone, it’s the next best thing.
Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes.
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: I played almost the entire game without sound and encountered zero difficulties. All information is provided via text, which cannot be resized. The game is fully accessible.
Remappable Controls: Yes, the game’s controls are remappable.
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