Since its reveal last year, I was eager to try Deliver At All Costs. The trailer gave me Crazy Taxi vibes with a 1950s touch. Then, when I saw it was being offered for free through the Epic Game Store for its first week of release, I knew I had to play it. Unfortunately, while there are some cool aspects to the game, the story brings it down.
A delivery driver with a mysterious past
The story around Deliver At All Costs is its weakest aspect. The game focuses on your character, Winston Green. He’s a young, down-on-his-luck person living on the island of St. Monique. After hearing about a company in town hiring, he heads over there in the hopes of landing a job. Because of some miscommunication between the radio station and “We Deliver”, there isn’t a job at all. Yet, impressed with Winston, the owner offers him a job anyway.
From there, we follow Winston as he gets himself involved in many crazy deliveries and tasks. You’ll go from transporting a statue while avoiding swarming bird poop to chasing UFOs. The tasks are out of this world and hard to believe, but they work well. Unfortunately, the story is uninteresting, and they take away from the fun parts.
The story is trying to juggle too many things. There are too many mysterious plotlines to follow. We have Winston’s strange background involving the Atomic Energy Commission. The owners of “We Deliver” have some odd goings on behind the scenes. Then, we have a set of characters who all seem to be doing things for their own gain. There is so much forced intrigue, but none of it is interesting.
Driving around without a care in the world.
Driving your truck on deliveries for ‘We Deliver’ is a lot of fun, but it has its limits. As mentioned before, the missions are the best part of the game. They’ve done a great job of tasking you on some wild assignments. It always starts with you getting to one location to pick up or do something. Then you’re off to another location to make the delivery. But every time something strange happens. These surprises along the way are the best parts and add a bit of thrill to your job.
While this part is fun, the world you’re driving in isn’t as deep as you’d expect. The locations are small, so you can get around in a short amount of time. You’ll also visit the same spots many times. It’s nice that the missions aren’t padded with bloated requirements. I only wish there were more things to discover.
Also, there doesn’t feel like there is any real consequence to your actions. You can cause a lot of damage, but it takes a lot before the police get involved. Then, when they come after you, it doesn’t feel like there is any penalty if you get caught. You do collect and earn money while playing, so it’s possible that they took some, but I didn’t notice any sort of dent. Even causing damage
Take out the story, and the game is so much better
The developers had a great concept for a game, but didn’t know how to package it. The story is the game’s weakest part and takes away from the fun delivery tasks. Winston isn’t an interesting character, even as they reveal more about his history.
A better option would have been to replace Winston with a user-generated character. Let users create a character they want and then go off and explore the world of St. Monique. Focus on the “unique” people of St. Monique and give this a proper sandbox feel.
There are some great missions available. I already shared a few, but one of my favorites involves you delivering balloons. While you’re driving around, you’re inflating them at the same time, which causes your truck to float. So, every time you hit a bump or drive off a hill, you soar in the air for a bit. There are other zanny missions. Unfortunately, the story ruins the pacing.
Get it for free while you can
I’m posting this blog as Deliver At All Cost is still available for free through Epic for another 15 hours. At that price point, this is an easy pick-up and fool around with. Most people will play this for an hour or so and then move on to something else. If you can’t get this for free, then I’d skip it or wait until it’s dirt cheap.
