Sega makes truck-driving fun with The King of Route 66

by Louis Bedigian

Proud to announce the release of The King of Route 66, Sega held a conference call to give select members of the press an overview of the game.  GameZone Online was there in full force to get all of the details. 

No other arcade game released in the past few years has had as big an impact on video games as Crazy Taxi.  It all started with a brilliant idea that seemed crazy – create a fast-paced “driving” game where your only goal is to pick up people and drop them off at their desired locations.  But the minute people started playing the finished product, they knew that this was another Sega classic that would be remembered for a very long time.

Since that time, Sega has spun off Crazy Taxi into several other games, one of the most popular being 18 Wheeler Pro Trucker.  18 Wheeler put gamers in the shoes of a somewhat crazy truck driver who would stop at nothing to make his delivery on time.  The arcade version featured an over-sized steering wheel to complete the truck-driving experience.

Two years later, Sega is at it again, this time with The King of Route 66.  Following in the footsteps of Sega’s other sequels, The King of Route 66 has more features, more levels and more refined gameplay.

Noah Musler, product manager of The King of Route 66, started off the conference by assuring us that the game would be more than a run-of-the-mill arcade conversion.  “Unlike 18 Wheeler Pro Trucker, we didn’t want this to be just an arcade port,” he said. 

To that end, Sega packed this awesome sequel with extra goodies, hidden items and other secrets that’ll keep you cruising down the open road for weeks to come.  Among the game modes are:

• The King of Route 66 (arcade mode)

• The Queen of Route 66 (career mode; earn the love of eight Queens of the States and buy up to 78 different parts to upgrade your truck)

•  Rival Battle (demolition derby-style battling)

•  Route 66 Challenge (a mini-games collection)
   

With so much to offer, Noah promises that game length will not be a problem.  “The first game was really short, and that was a big issue that we raised with the developer when they started talking about bringing this game over to PS2,” he said.  “Overall the game is at least 20 hours long.  It takes a while to get through career mode and build up your truck.  [It’s] pretty robust – there’s a lot of missions to finish, a lot of demands to satisfy.”

Many of Sega’s games featured hidden items that were really difficult to find.  Now The King of Route 66 is getting in on the fun with its own item-collecting game.  Noah told us that “you’ll get greater bonuses for collecting the items, which then can be used to unlock hidden characters.” 

“Exploration is encouraged, but you have to stay true to the goals to some extent because there’s time limits, and you have to defeat certain characters.”

In the Queen of Route 66 mode, you have to “earn the love” of eight queens from eight different states.  Not all of the playable characters are male though.  And not all of the game players will be male either.  As odd (or creepy or sexy, depending on your point of view of the matter) as that may sound, both Noah and Bryce Baer (Sega PR) reminded us that “everybody needs love.”

The King of Route 66 has a cool two-player split-screen mode.  Unfortunately, online play did not make it into the game, and for a very good reason.  "Yes, there were [plans for an online mode].  We decided that where Sony was with its online strategy at the time that this game was in its early stages of planning and development, that we didn't feel like we could take advantage of it with The King of Route 66.  It was something the team wanted to do, talked about doing, it just didn't fit into the plan."

During the conference call, Sega gave us the chance to ask them some questions about this exciting sequel.

Question: What can you tell us about the story mode?

Noah: Essentially the road Route 66 has been taken over by the Tornado Corporation, which is kind of a soulless unit.  They own the road with an iron fist, and basically terrorize all the towns along the way.  [The Tornado Corporation] stole all the trucking jobs, and it's your job to beat them at their own game, steal the business back and get rid of their influence over the road.

The arcade and career modes are split up into a series of missions in each state, so for example you start out in Illinois, and you'll have between three and five missions, and if you work your way through each state to California, it'll total around 30 missions.  The story progresses with each mission, and the game gives you a pretty wide variety of challenges.

Chase (Access Communications, Sega PR): Throughout the mode you're offered choices where you can choose which cargo you want to deliver, which will either [affect] the degree of difficulty or the [amount] of money earned. 

Graphically, is The King of Route 66 a direct port, or has some technology been changed to conform to the game console?

Noah: Some assets have been used, certain textures and certain environments have been brought over from the arcade.  But the team had to build the graphics engine pretty much from scratch for this version.  In their opinion it actually looks better than the arcade, and I would say that they are probably right.  There are a lot of graphic effects - lighting stuff, and reflections from the weather that you see in the PlayStation 2 version that you don't see in the arcade.

Regarding the gameplay, are the controls the same?  Is the steering just as tight as it was before?

Noah: You would have to play the [console versions] side by side to see a distinct difference.  It's different from the arcade because the arcade has that giant wheel.  But compared to the original 18 Wheeler, you'd have to play them side-by-side to see the subtle differences.

I do know that the team was trying to get this game to be a little more authentic.  We actually took them to truck driving school.  They came to visit us in the States and I took them to a driving school in Oakland and they actually got to go and ride a giant 18-wheeler truck and see how it handles.  And they tried to bring as much of that feeling to the home version of the game.  Everything designed in this game was prolonged, the experience to give people the feeling that are driving a really big truck, really fast, across country.  It's less of an arcade experience, [and] it definitely feels different from the arcade version.

What can we expect from the soundtrack?  What kind of music is the game going to have?

Noah: It's all original music; we didn't license any music for the game.  The team spent a lot of time listening to classic American road music and sort of took some influences from what you hear on any classic rock station.

Is The King of Route 66 any faster or smoother than 18-Wheeler Pro Trucker?

Noah: It's running smoothly.  I couldn't give you an exact frame rate count, if it's 30 or 60 or somewhere in between, but it stays pretty smooth.

Does it feel faster?

Noah: [The game] was designed to convey a different experience, a more realistic experience.  But I wouldn't call it a sim by any means.  If you play it in first-person mode it feels pretty fast, especially when using a nitro or barreling down a hill.  In third-person view, in my opinion, it doesn't feel quite as fast, so I prefer to play it in first-person view, but it's a matter of preference.

From my experience with 18 Wheeler Pro Trucker, I’d have to agree.

The King of Route 66 will be crashing into stores on March 18th.  Look for a full review of the title on GameZone Online in the coming weeks.