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I can't drive, and I will probably never learn, but still: I hear very good things about the shift from third to fourth gear. I can imagine it, actually. I can imagine the moment. For the car, it's all like, "Oh, we're doing this are we? I guess you really want to get to that Mexican restaurant." But for the driver, it's more of an anticipatory thrill, a twitch of everyday nihilism. Ask an ordinary person if they're willing to rob a bank with you, and the moment they're most likely to say yes is the moment when they move from third to fourth. The future seems panoramic. The brain disengages. This is the body's territory. You reach forward for the gear stick or whatever it's called, you push - or you pull or whatever you do - and there's a sort of sinewy catch. A catch! Something fast trades with something faster: you're hooked and then you're off. You were off before, of course, but now you're off. Really off. Unstoppably off. Did-I-just-hit-that-badger? off.And beyond fourth? I hear good things about fifth gear, too.
Spintires has a moment a bit like this. It's the best moment in the game. But testify! It takes place at a speed of roughly no miles per hour - the speed at which almost all of this astonishing and rackety confection plays out. You're stuck deep in the mud and you've been churning up spray for minutes. But something far beneath you has shifted imperceptibly, putting you fleetingly in contact with solid matter. It catches - or rather you catch on it - and then there's this tantalising moment of pre-lurch. Metal starts to move and then it all rocks forward at once - forward, forward, forward, over a tiny, invisible hill. And then you're stuck again. But you're not stuck where you used to be stuck. Now you're stuck somewhere else.
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