ARCADE WATCH

Keeping an eye on the coin-op gaming scene

Game Nitro Trucks Manufacturer Raw Thrills

Vehicular combat games are hardly new in arcades, so it’s odd that Raw Thrills (manufacturer of the arcade classic Dirty Drivin’) has gone down a different route than you might expect in an industry that now, more than ever, needs invention to keep those coins pumping. It’s dialled back the features and even the ‘battle’ in its new battle racer to the basics of a demolition derby racer.

The aim is still to win at all costs, but Nitro Trucks is more about the off-road feel of the dirt tracks, the collision physics of the vehicles you’re muscling your way through, and nitro-aided grunt you’re packing. The only weapon is a limited ram ability, activated by double-pumping the gas pedal, with which you can smash other trucks into the barriers or flip them out of action. Nitro boosts activate on pick-ups, as do repairs, which will get you back up to speed after a nasty shunt from another driver’s heavily reinforced front bumper.

Tracks throw up a lot of sparks and muck behind your chunky tyres, but the driving is off-road in name only; courses are constrained in traditional circuits, of which there are six, including a UK track based in ‘Wreckstershire’. The slender, funky-coloured cabinets feature a roll-cage, force-feedback steering wheel and headacheinducing 5.1 surround sound – but while it’s great to see new machines released to arcades with Covid-19 having held up so much, Nitro Trucks doesn’t seem to offer up much more than a wheel, a gas pedal and a lot of noise.