Then there’s the terrain which must always be considered too. Snow Runner’s new and distinctly frosty Alaskan setting provides mother nature with yet more weapons at her disposal to give the player trouble. Likewise, a sports car might look nice, but if you’re taking it through a muddy bog or a flooded road, you’re going to get stuck, and get stuck quickly. While a regular, responsive car can be thrown around corners with relative reckless abandon, a much larger truck will not and it’s here that you can really feel the weight of this massive metal beast as it grinds itself around bends in an almost uncomfortably large turning circle.

Where the figurative sting in the tail comes into play is in physics heavy handling model that SnowR unner employs and more importantly, how that model is affected by any number of plausible factors.Īt a basic level, every vehicles handles differently – but that handling is directly affected by the power to weight ratio that is unique for each mode of transport. Put in control of a variety of hulking service vehicles such as large vans, trucks, 12-wheelers and much more besides, the goal often in Snow Runner is to transport cargo from one location to another in order to facilitate an economic project of some sort (the loading screens are stuffed with odd factoids about the real-life role that big vehicles play in the US economy), such as building a bridge or fashioning some other type of key infrastructure. Like many of the best things in life, Snow Runner’s appeal is simple to grasp and also deceptively deep. From the weight of the vehicle itself to the weight of the cargo and the terrain that surrounds you, so much can affect your journey across Snow Runner’s three very different rugged environments.

The weighty, heft-driven handling model that underpins Snow Runner is palpably satisfying and deceptively deep.

If that sounds boring to you, I’d still suggest that you keep reading, not least because the level of satisfaction that it dishes out to the player on the regular is both rewardingly hard won and hugely welcome. As far away from a white-knuckle arcade style title as you can possibly get, Snow Runner instead slows everything down to an almost literal crawl and shines the light on bigger vehicles and the key role they play in the economy.

Ps4 mudrunner review