Seeing where you’re going can be a real pain at times though, should you use the third person view, as the camera is probably one of the worst examples in recent history. You have a winch that is sometimes essential, as you attach it to trees in order to pull you out of sticky situations don’t pull too hard though, you can pull smaller trees down if you aren’t careful! You can switch to other vehicles on the map too, if you’ve discovered them, in a manner not too dissimilar to Driver: San Francisco you simply teleport into the driving seat of your chosen vehicle and off you go. It’s not just about the usual going, stopping and changing gears, as you’ll have to think about using the Differential Lock to make sure all the wheels rotate in unison, providing greater traction in the toughest conditions. The actual driving is quite relaxing at times, but the depth is great. Each challenge has bonus objectives for those of you that fancy something a bit tougher these will vary from level to level, but add an extra layer to the experience. These range from simple deliveries to driving up steep and treacherous hills in a 4×4, or even tracking down a cabin trailer in pitch darkness, in a swamp they’ll teach you about watchtowers that can reveal undiscovered areas on the map, or about using partial gears like I mentioned earlier, to stop yourself from getting stuck in the mud. Instead, you’ll be directed to the new challenge mode. From there, you can jump into the sandbox-like campaign if you like, but you’ll be warned that you might not have learned everything you need to know in order to get fully into it. You’ll learn how to drive through the tutorial, which walks you through the basics of driving these heavy vehicles in such unconventional conditions. You can’t simply step on the loud pedal and expect to go, you have to be a bit more patient and sometimes use the manual gearbox to go between gears and go slowly up a hill, otherwise you’ll just dig your wheels into the earth and you’ll be stuck. While not quite as in-depth as a truck simulator, the physics are very impressive as you fight against the natural environment.

Look, we live in an age where Truck Simulator has become a bit of a cult classic Mudrunner just takes that idea and replaces the asphalt with dirt roads. Wait wait wait, where are you going? This game isn’t anywhere near as boring as I’ve just made it sound.

In this case however, Spintires: Mudrunner is about the literal spinning of tyres in the churning mud of the deep countryside, usually in a large truck of some description, delivering various things (usually logs) from point A to point B. It conjures up ideas of wheelspins, which is often attributed to smoking tyres and all that jazz.

First things first with a title like Spintires, you might be forgiven for thinking that this is a racing game, had you never heard of it before.

Mudrunner spintires