Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing begins with a straightforward premise: choose one of four massive rigs, load up cargo and race against a rival trucking company to deliver your goods before they do. On paper, the goal is simple—beat the opposing truck across five distinct courses, each offering different terrain and visual backdrops. The rulebook suggests heated competition, route planning and tactical driving, evoking classic arcade-style racing excitement.

In practice, however, the gameplay mechanics collapse almost immediately. There is no real artificial intelligence governing the opponent’s truck, meaning it sits idle at the start line and never crosses it. With no pressure to compete, the player cruises to the finish unopposed. This lack of challenge transforms every “race” into an empty exercise rather than a contest of skill or strategy.

The physics engine compounds the problem: collisions are nonexistent, allowing rigs to phase through buildings, trees and bridges without slowdown. Speed limits evaporate as rigs accelerate indefinitely—backwards motion is as fast as forward motion, and there’s no penalty for driving off cliffs or beyond map boundaries. A rudimentary post-release patch adds a moving AI opponent, but it predictably stops just before the finish line, leaving victory assured.

Graphics

Visually, Big Rigs feels stuck in an early-1990s time warp, even by the standards of its release era. Polygon counts are minimal, texturing is flat and repetitive, and draw distances abruptly pop objects into view. Each course might carry a unique theme—farmland, forests or industrial sites—but so little detail is present that environments feel lifeless.

The lack of collision detection isn’t just a gameplay flaw; it undermines any sense of immersion. Trucks slide through fences and backdrop assets without any visual or audio feedback. Bridges appear purely ornamental, collapsing graphical fidelity when your rig passes through them rather than respecting structural form.

Animation is virtually nonexistent—wheels don’t spin convincingly, and there’s no visible suspension movement. Matter-of-factly, the HUD provides a speedometer that rapidly climbs beyond comprehension, yet there’s no graphical flourish to communicate that absurd velocity. The only consistency is in its bland color palette, which fails to evoke the energy or scale expected of a trucking simulator or racing title.

Story

The narrative framework of Big Rigs is minimal: you’re a trucking outfit aiming to out-deliver the competition and force them out of business. This premise suggests underdog triumph, corporate rivalry and a highway saga. In some truckers’ tales, that could make for an engaging storyline and a motivating backdrop to the races.

Unfortunately, the storyline remains purely decorative. There are no cutscenes, no dialogue or character profiles—just a title screen and menu options. You’re told who you are and what you’re doing, but the game never builds on that premise or invests you in the stakes. Each course is introduced only by name, with no context about cargo type, destination significance or competitive narrative.

With no branching paths, no escalating sense of rivalry and no payoff beyond “you win because the other truck never moves,” storytelling is effectively absent. Any emotional drive or connection to the trucking world is lost among the bugs and mechanical shortcomings, leaving the plot as thin as the road textures beneath your wheels.

Overall Experience

In its final form, Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing qualifies more as a curiosity than a playable title. Its promise of cross-country truck battles against a rival company dissolves into an empty vehicle sandbox where rules don’t apply. There’s no tension, no challenge and no reward beyond the novelty of driving through solid objects.

For collectors of “so-bad-it’s-good” experiences, Big Rigs may offer a certain ironic entertainment value. Observing the broken physics, the unmoving opponent and the runaway speedometer can inspire laughter and disbelief. Yet as a genuine gaming product, it fails to deliver on almost every front, falling short of basic standards in polish, design and player engagement.

Prospective buyers seeking a legitimate racing or trucking simulator should look elsewhere—there are countless titles that execute the core ideas of cargo delivery and route competition with far greater competence. Big Rigs remains a notorious example of ambition unfulfilled, best experienced for its place in gaming lore rather than its replay value.

Retro Replay Score

2.2/10