Big Mutha Truckers 2

Originally published on my HLTB profile.

Originally written and published on December 12th, 2025.

Big Mutha Truckers 2: Truck Me Harder is an arcade trucking game developed by Eutechnyx as a sequel to the first game. Now, I didn't play the original, so I can't exactly compare the games, notice its evolution or lack there of, and also I played this game as a child, which might have influenced me in thinking it is not that bad, but oh well.

If I really think about it, it is kind of interesting how this game manages to walk the line in-between being actually trashy, and a proper satire. I would not find it surprising if many people just brushed this off as shovelware, but I think those arcade roots make it a little bit more than that. A little bit.

Alright, so, how is the game? It is an arcade trucking game with an open world, where you deliver cargo and do some extra missions, of course, with a few gimmicks sprinkled in. The driving itself is not...bad, but it is not great either. I like the ability to control the movement of the trailer somewhat, but the fact is the driving is somewhat lackluster. Collisions and jumps can really mess you up sometimes, and this is not something you should excuse as realism in an arcade like this. It's not great. A single crash into a small car can make you lose control, turning at slow speed is just weird, and your truck sometimes just phases through destructible objects. And lastly, while the missions add a bit more variety, the driving controls on those vehicles are either very basic, and in the case of your truck without a trailer, it both oversteers and understeers depending on speed, and feels both too light and too heavy. So the driving is rather weak, all in all.

The graphics and the map of the game though are, I think, not so bad for the time, actually. The map is detailed and varied enough and includes a bunch of shortcuts. The biggest issue was its size, though. A delivery from one corner of the map to the other one takes about a minute and a half of gameplay. That felt a bit too short sometimes.

The gameplay loop itself, however, I somewhat enjoyed. It is a very quick one though. You buy cargo, check prices, drive to most profitable destination, sell, maybe do a mission or gamble if you want to. Although, the amounts of money you can get from gambling are chump-change compared to what you will need. It can get repetitive and grindy at times, but they did try to spice it up. I wonder if the grindiness could have been the point... the mundaness of driving a truck, of trucking away mile to mile to earn your pay, but... I'm probably thinking too much about it. Anyway, there are some nice gimmicks that make it a bit more engaging, like the bikers, UFOs, hobos, police, the vehicles you can destroy for extra boost or other bonuses and such. They force you to adapt your driving a bit, which is nice. However, one of the two things that made the game enjoyable is that, while repetitive, it wasn’t exactly easy to the point of becoming brainless. If you want to make the most money as quickly as possible, you'll choose the hardest difficulty, meaning little time, and this forces you to pay attention to the road and traffic, to the obstacles, to the gimmicks, look out for shortcuts, sometimes even having to choose an alternative route, away from the recommended one, otherwise you won't get your bonus. That optimization mindset, where you piece it all together kept me satisfied enough.

Finally, I want to touch upon the humor and style of the game. I mentioned earlier that the game walks between being trashy and a humorous satire. Well, in some ways, considering it was made in the early 2000s, I find it hard to say whether a few of these stereotypes were made more genuinely or as a satire. However, the vast majority of the game is obviously taking a piss. I think you'll struggle to find a single person in the game who couldn't be classified as some sort of stereotype. You'll meet all kinds of people from hillbillies, rednecks, world-weary sassy diner waitresses, Wall Street brokers, and gay sailors to Russian oligarchs and hippie vegan "neo-feminists". The humor is low-brow, but I don't think that comes off as a surprise to anyone who bothered to even read the title of the game. The other thing that kept me engaged was the radios. They opted out for the style of actual radios with talk hosts, guests and advertisements, and not just a playlist of music. I especially liked the talk radio, and it is one of the better attempts to emulate the likes of GTA's radios. Maybe the humor isn't for everyone, but I found it somewhat charming and campy enough to enjoy it. This line, to be honest, applies to the whole game I feel, albeit with effects of some nostalgia attached.

Overall rating: 55%

Playtime: 7h 56m

Played on PC.