Sledgehammer / Gear Grinder

I'll be straight with you: my first session with Sledgehammer left me grinning for about twenty minutes before the cracks started showing. The concept is genuinely fun - armed-up semi trucks blasting each other across highways and arenas, with a campaign that throws races, demolition runs, cargo escorts, and oddball minigames like truck bowling at you in rotation. Community comparisons to Carmageddon and the old Interstate series are not wrong, and if those names make your eyes light up, you at least understand the appeal here. The single-player campaign runs through a pulpy, B-movie story that nobody should take seriously, and that's fine. You earn money from missions, pour it back into your truck, and unlock melee attachments, light and heavy weapons, armor plating, and nitro boosts. That upgrade loop feels satisfying for a few hours, and the variety of mission types - race to the finish, destroy a quota of vehicles on an open highway, survive arena deathmatch - does keep the early campaign from going stale too fast. The progression has a decent hook to it: watching your starting rust bucket evolve into a bristling war machine is the game's best feature. Here is where the honest part comes in. The balance is all over the place. Some races are embarrassingly easy while certain escort and protection missions become wall-smashing frustrating, often because of AI or objective bugs rather than any skill ceiling you can actually climb. The third-person camera sits so close behind your truck that enemy threats frequently appear from nowhere, especially when armed opponents spawn behind you with no warning. Handling is spongy in the way only old-school arcade trucks can be, which is charming at low speeds and maddening on tight turns. The voice acting is genuinely terrible in both English and Russian, but at this point that almost adds to the charm. Multiplayer supports up to eight players in cooperative and deathmatch modes, which is the most interesting thing on the box. The problem in 2024 is finding eight people to actually fill those lobbies. The online community is essentially silent. If you have a group of friends willing to set up a session together, the deathmatch mode has a scrappy, chaotic energy that works well enough. But do not buy this expecting active matchmaking - it is not there. There is no split-screen option either, which cuts out the couch co-op crowd entirely and is a genuine miss for a game built around this kind of arcade silliness. Controller support does work, and an Xbox pad is a comfortable way to play. Sledgehammer is the kind of game you find in a bundle, install on a whim, and have an oddly good time with for a weekend before it overstays its welcome. It is rough, unpolished, and clearly built on a tight budget by a studio that cared more about the concept than the execution. For fans of vehicular combat who have already played everything Targem's better-regarded Hard Truck: Apocalypse series has to offer, this is a curiosity worth an afternoon. Everyone else should temper expectations hard.

Riley · Scout Team

Sports & racing

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