Road 96 was an ingenious game that could feel, at times, like a bit of a mess. Set in Petria, an Americana-tinged totalitarian state, it followed a range of teens who were making a break for the border and a better life. Even now, the thought of the whole thing dazzles me a little: one by one, you take these teens from deep inside the country as they make their hardscrabble way to potential freedom. Hitchhiking, hiding out in lorries, jammed in the back of a cop car, each attempt had a beginning and an end, and then you’d do it all over again with a new protagonist.
The hook – and it was a great hook – is that these separate attempts would overlap in terms of the personnel they involved. So you’d encounter the same truckers, cops, and bank robbers again and again at different points in their own stories. Over the course of the game a rich portrait emerged, even if, looking back, I’m not sure exactly what it was a portrait of. Petria itself? The human spirit? The lasting appeal of 90s road movies? Anyway, it was vivid and empathetic and ambitious and surprising, the perfect match for the game’s sunburned, rough-textured art style.
Now here’s Road 96: Mile 0. It’s a prequel to the first game, and it feels, at times, like a bit of a mess. And actually, I think it is a mess – but I’m not sure that’s necessarily a bad thing. Why is it a mess, though? I wonder if it’s the mileage. The same thrumming energy of Road 96 is here, but the endless scoring and underscoring of that journey to the border is missing. This is the moment before everyone started to flee, so the game’s antic enthusiasm for strange encounters and oddball asides has to work within confines. It’s a Catherine wheel stuck in starting position on a fence as it sparks and splutters. It’s a cat trying to get itself out of a duvet.
