Sometimes people have a drive in mind when they make their game. They may want to make a spiritual successor to a game they enjoyed when a child, or seek to create a game that they’ve always wanted to play themselves but no one else ever made. Or, sometimes they just want the world to know how much they love one particular make of car.

Russian Car Driver is a racing game that challenges the player to “Drive like Russian”. A big thing is made in the game of how ‘wonderful’ the VAZ 2108 car is, with characters in the story mode saying how good it is and the promos talking about the car as if getting to drive it is a huge deal. The car itself can be kind of customised, with the body colour and hub colour being the main two options, with special unique ‘styles’ available for unlock when you complete certain tasks in the game’s modes.

Speaking of which, there’s about five modes with four of them being racing or driving challenges of sorts and the fifth being a freedrive mode with optional story mode. However, upon launch some of these modes are locked and you once again need to complete a task to unlock them. Racing is what this game was sold upon being, and with a standard race and a rally you at least have options there.

The freedrive mode with story is where I spent a lot of time though, driving around and trying to discover what would (cows, deer, road signs, fences) and wouldn’t (buildings, bears, other vehicles, some larger trees) be flattened under the wheels of my tires. Every now and then the story would advance by the next mission quest text being sent via texts on the phone, in slightly broken English. I’m giving that the benefit of the doubt though, as we’re apparently in Russia and English is not the first language there. Hell, it adds a little charm for me. What confuses me is that even when the quest giver is standing next to you, they will still text you rather than talking. I didn’t think everyone was that plugged into their phones. You also gain experience by driving around, but every level up is rather sudden, with the game suddenly coming to a pause as the ‘level up’ attributes menu just pops up without a sound. Choose which attribute to improve and then suddenly you’re back in the game. It’s rather jarring, and what’s worse, picking up the 25 special information manual pickups on the car’s history will trigger the same jarring silent cut from the game.

This game does not look good, it doesn’t handle crisply although not bad at all, and frankly the races were a pain to try and win. The control system was a bit fiddly and even when I got comfortable with it, I’d still sometimes be losing control. This game is in the ‘so bad it’s good’ category for some and I can see why.

It’s not for me though.

3/10