We all have fantasy lifestyles we all dream about living out to the fullest.  Mine just happens to be, believe it or not, to drive a huge truck down the highway with my left arm nicely sunburned and humming along to an old country ditty . . . just don’t call me Cletus.  While living out a nice little redneck fantasy might not be for everyone, Big Mutha Truckers on the Xbox just might tickle your fancy . . . or your inner redneck.  Yet is this game more fun than a square dance hoedown, or Uncle Jim Bob‘s foot-tappin‘ banjo playing?  Only way to find out, right?

It seems that Ma Jackson has just about had it with the trucking empire she created and it’s time to retire.  While she doesn’t want to completely do away with the business, she figures it should be passed on to one of her four children: Cletus, Big Earl, Rawkus and her only daughter, Bobbie-Sue.  Not to show any favoritism to one particular person, she challenges them to a sixty-day race to come up with enough money.  The Jackson that comes home with the most money wins the race and the family business so you can imagine the intensity of this race.

Trucking isn’t an easy lifestyle, as you’ll quickly see, and you’ll soon learn that while each of the Jackson kids has their own personality, they all drive the same way.  While Cletus might be the family drunkard and Rawkus a smooth ladies' man, they all have to haul cargo on a bulky rig hitched to a trailer.  Control-wise, the rig is an awkward vehicle to drive.  For those who played the Grand Theft Auto games, it’s easy to drive the rig but the attached trailer just makes it harder to make sharp turns or even reverse correctly.  Still, the game does a good job of giving you a taste of what it’s like to transport goods to and from a certain location.

The game’s main mode of playing is Trail by Truckin’ and follows you (as any of the four Jackson brood) through Ma Jackson’s 60-day challenge.  Each day, you can elect to take cargo from any of the six key locations in the Hick State County.  Each location has bars, garages and shops ready to peddle you anything from more fuel to repairs your rig might need (smash into too many cars and you damage your rig enough to make Ma mad).  Bars are also a good place to get work, make money on slot machines, or get a loan you can pay off at some point.

There are plenty of challenges in this game; the more frequent ones come from rival truck drivers that challenge you to a race to your next destination.  Since the object is to make money, you can accept or decline any offer made to you ... although if you’re headed there anyway, it’s best to take them up on it.  Yet the name of the game is trucking and you make more money hauling cargo each city demands.  You can sell your trailer and buy a new one to haul specific cargo and even earn extra money for parking challenges (where you have to park your rig in a certain location).

While all of this sounds interesting, it gets old pretty quickly that, by the fourth day you’ve already done and seen everything this game has to show.  It becomes kind of hard to want to see the missions on all the way to the sixty-day period, especially since many of the challenges don’t stray from the same formula of smash this or that, or race so-and-so to the next city.  The only thing that does add a little something extra is the police that can give a pretty good chase or the motorcycle gang that attempts to jack you.  And with no multiplayer mode, the Missions mode (which just borrows missions from the Trail by Truckin’ mode) are hardly enough to keep you continuing playing this game.

Since this isn’t a serious trucking simulator, the graphics lean more towards a comical appearance.  Each of the Jackson kinfolk look like your average stereotype of what a hick county redneck looks like.  They’re more caricatures of toothless, cap-wearing hillbillies while Billie-Joe looks like a redneck fantasy in her pigtails and daisy dukes.  While the characters are amusing to look at, it’s the trucks that steal the show as well as the detailed locales and highways filled with other vehicles and truck stops.  While the graphics could have been a lot better, it fits the style of game rather well.

The sound fairs a bit better than the graphics -- but not by very much.  Sure there’s a working radio and you can switch the stations at any time (there are a reasonable amount of stations to choose from) but none of the tunes are recognizable except for Steppenwolf's “Born to be Wild” or Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water.”  The sound effects are minimal since the dominating sound is your rig’s engine and horn or the insult hurled at you by angry motorists.  And not only do the characters look like stereotypes, but they also sound like stereotypes.  Their dialogue, especially those of the Jackson kin, is how you’d expect them to talk.  To quote Cletus: “I’d be happier than a pig in its root if ya gave me a cold one!”  Ten-four, good buddy.

Unfortunately, Big Mutha Truckers only manages to fully immerse gamers into the backwoods-redneck trucking lifestyle but fails to make it fun or challenging enough to keep us interested in seeing the game through to the very end.  The fact that there’s no multiplayer mode just keeps the focus on a single mode that shows all its cards way too early in the game and giving us not much to look forward to the farther into the game you go.  If redneck humor and ramming rigs into stuff sounds like fun, renting this one might just be what the doctor ordered.

 
Gameplay: 6.5
Driving a rig is hard work and Big Mutha Truckers manages to accurately capture how hard it really is so expect the first few rides into the city to be really chaotic.  Although the controls are pretty basic, maneuvering the rig at top speeds leads to a lot of collisions with other vehicles and you better forget about putting that baby in reverse.

There are plenty of challenges to go around and plenty of rival truckers to race to your next destination.  One mini-game has you running down newspaper bins for a reporter that doesn’t want her upsetting story to be seen by anyone in the county.   Still the main objective always seems to keep you on track, leaving little time to explore the few things this game has to offer.

Graphics: 7
Strangely enough, the graphics certainly feel right at home in a game that certainly slides more on the humorous side than a realistic trucking simulation.  Redneck humor aside, the visuals aren’t at all impressive enough compared to recent driving games like Burnout 2: Point of Impact or Midtown Madness 3.  Still, all is not bad when it comes to the nicely detailed locations such as Vegas-like city of Greenback with its flashing lights and ritzy casinos.

The characters aren’t rendered as nicely as they should but they fit the purpose of making you laugh, especially when you get an eyeful of Cletus or hefty Big Earl.  Still, much of what you’ll be looking at are the rigs themselves that actually don’t look bad at all and fit the personality of each of Ma Jackson’s sons and daughter.  You can also design your own logo that can be affixed to the back of your trailer. 

Sound: 7.5
The sound wins more points for its amusing stereotype accents and redneck brand of humor.  Attractive Bobbie-Sue sounds just like a character straight out of Beverly Hillbillies as does Cletus and Big Earl (Rawkus Jackson is the only member of the family that really stands out).  You’ll also find a number of stereotypes throughout the city from the stuck-up Asian cutie running the bar in one of the cities to the way too-friendly bartender in all-men’s seaside bar. 

There’s also a fully functional radio complete with four stations.  You can listen to rock, modern country, a strange station that mixes country and rap, and even a talk show that touches on all the redneck issues quite hilariously. 

Difficulty: Medium
Half the game’s difficulty comes from trying to keep your rig’s trailer from slamming into oncoming traffic when you make those wide turns.  Smack a police car and you have yourself a chase across the counties, and they’re a tough bunch to shake loose.  The same can be said about the biker gang that just happen to love jacking trucks and getting in the way during races.  Many of the challenges are really easy, while others, like the parking bonuses, are a lot tougher.  Your truck also easily takes a lot of damage so it’s always wise  to watch your damage (and fuel) meter.

Concept: 6
Trucking simulators might not be everyone’s idea of fun but this game does throw in plenty of entertaining and humorous challenges to offer something somewhat unique from the recent racing games available for your Xbox.  Aside from the objective-based driving, there are several moments in the game that have you doing things like taking out loans (with a careful eye on interest rates), repair damages or refuel when needed.  While the game doesn’t offer complete freedom, you always have to option to take or decline any job that’s offered to you.  Yet with no multiplayer mode, there’s not much to this game.

Overall: 6.5
Big Mutha Truckers falls short in so many things that would have made this one a really fun game to try out when gamers get tired of fancy street racing.  With not much to offer in terms of modes or challenges that will keep you interested enough to see this one through the end, I could only recommend this one as a weekend rental.