18 Wheeler: American Pro Trucker

18 Wheeler: American Pro Trucker (also known as just 18 Wheeler) is an arcade game developed by Sega AM2 and distributed by Sega. The game was first released in arcades in 2000, then ported to the Dreamcast in 2001. It was later released for the PlayStation 2 in 2001 and GameCube in 2002 by Acclaim Entertainment. Sega followed up on the success of 18 Wheeler with a sequel, The King of Route 66, which was released in the arcades around 2002 and ported to the Playstation 2. This was one of the final arcade video games ports to be on the Dreamcast after it's discontinuation before Sega became a third party developer.

Gameplay

Players start the game going from New York City to Key West (shown here) hauling a fuel tanker.

The main purpose of the game is to make it to the finish line with the truck's cargo. Players are given a set amount of time, but can ram into special vans that will add three seconds to the timer. There are several characters to choose from, each with a unique truck and attributes.

The game starts out in New York City and players travel across the United States, ending in San Francisco. After Stage 1, the game gives the player a choice of trailer. One trailer is harder to haul, but provides a bigger payoff while the other choice is easier to haul but provides a smaller payoff. Money is deducted from the total when the trailer is hit. Players can sound the truck's horn to make other cars on the road yield and slipstream behind large vehicles to gain a momentary speed boost.

In addition to the time limit, players also compete with the "Lizard Tail", a rival trucker. Crossing the finish line before the Lizard Tail yields additional money. In between levels, players can park the truck in a mini game to earn more cash and upgrades for their truck, such as an improved horn.

Ports

The first port of the game was released on the Dreamcast. Released by Sega, it is faithful to its arcade counterpart, but the voice actors for the characters were changed and it lacks the arcade's cross-country map loading screens. One of the selectable truckers in the arcade version, Nihon Maru was now made available as an unlockable character. A split screen multiplayer mode was added, allowing two players to race against each other. The game was released by Acclaim Entertainment (who also released Sega's Ferrari F355 Challenge on the Dreamcast) on the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube after Sega stopped making consoles and became a software based company.

Reception

Reception

Review scores Publication Score Dreamcast GC PS2 AllGame [1] [2] N/A Edge 6/10[3] N/A N/A EGM 6.33/10[4] 5.5/10[5] N/A Game Informer 8.5/10[6] 6/10[7] 7.25/10[8] GamePro [9] [10] N/A Game Revolution C[11] N/A N/A GameSpot 6.5/10[12] 4.6/10[13] 6.3/10[14] GameSpy 6.5/10[15] 68%[16] N/A GameZone N/A 4.5/10[17] 6/10[18] IGN 7.8/10[19] 5/10[20] 5.5/10[21] Nintendo Power N/A 2.8/5[22] N/A OPM (US) N/A N/A [23] BBC Sport N/A N/A 72%[24] Maxim 6/10[25] N/A N/A Aggregate scores GameRankings 63.58%[26] 51.04%[27] 55.25%[28] Metacritic 67/100[29] 52/100[30] 61/100[31]

The home versions of the game were met with mixed reception upon release. GameRankings and Metacritic gave it a score of 64% and 67 out of 100 for the Dreamcast version;^[26][29] 55% and 61 out of 100 for the PlayStation 2 version;^[28][31] and 51% and 52 out of 100 for the GameCube version.^[27][30]

AllGame gave the arcade version a score of three stars out of five and stated that it "does have a fairly thorough scoring system that some will take to, but it lacks the gameplay that great arcade titles such as Crazy Taxi possess. That isn't to say it's a bad game: it's beautiful to behold and will give you short term thrills, but it isn't one that you'll find yourself coming back to again and again after you've thrown down a couple of dollars playing it. In the end, it's a fun but short ride."^[32]

See also

• Big Mutha Truckers
• 18 Wheels of Steel

References

• "System 16: Naomi hardware". Archived from the original on 8 May 2006. Retrieved 23 May 2006. 

External links

• English game audio samples at AudioAtrocities.com
• 18 Wheeler: American Pro Trucker at the Killer List of Videogames
• 18 Wheeler: American Pro Trucker at MobyGames
• The King of Route 66 PS2 review on AllGame