My Summer Car is the most hardcore driving game yet

[Administrator]

My vacuum-packed sausages have just made a bid for freedom somewhere along the main road where I'm hurtling along in excess of 60km/h, wriggling their way free of the passenger seat and flinging themselves out of the open door and into the Finnish wilds. Never mind. I'm quite possibly about to die of hunger, but I'm not that fussed. I pick a bottle of beer from the crate that's sitting by my side and take a thirsty glug, flipping the bird at a family sedan. A short while later, I think the family gets its revenge. Reaching down to tune out of the scratchy Finnish pop station I've been listening to the past 20 minutes, I look up too late to see it bearing down on me in what's set to be an unavoidable head-on collision. I've rocketed headfirst through the windscreen before I'm able to get both hands back on the wheel, wiping all the progress I'd made. Gran Turismo was never like this.
Not that I'd made too much progress. Back home, everything was in an absolute state. The front strut of my special project car was sitting somewhere amidst a nest of loose pistons, I'd lost the fuel line and while trying to fit a subwoofer in the back the front fender popped off of its own accord. My Summer Car is, one level, a maddening Lego set where the instruction booklet has long been tossed away and the blocks have been chewed to pieces by a lovable but mangy family dog. Bolts must be tightened, parts must be put in place and there's a sense of overwhelming joy and achievement just to get the engine idling over.
I've not managed that myself, just yet at least. Making cars is hard, and while I appreciate the depth and detail that's offered in My Summer Car's lavish car building - a side of it that's a savagely difficult hybrid of the brilliant Jalopy and Car Mechanic Simulator - I'm absolutely useless when it comes to the literal nuts and bolts of building a rustbucket. There's another side to My Summer Car, though, that I excel at; the part where it becomes Redneck Finnish Man Simulator, and a side of the game that's stuffed with just as much depth and detail.
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