Everybody’s Scalin’ – Spintires: Mudrunner

It’s a super exciting time for scaling. Axial just announced an updated version of the SCX10.2. Vaterra just announced a sweet Ford truggy version of the Ascender. The RC4WD Marlin is hitting stores. We just completed our 1.9 Scaler Shoot-out. There’s a lot going on, folks.

Before getting into the topic at hand, I just wanted to mention that I will be discussing the shoot-out at length just as soon as the whole thing goes live. We are shooting for next week. Sorry guys, if I spoil anything Cubby will kill me. It was one heck of an experience, though.

So, what have I been doing the last week while not testing for said shoot-out? I’ve been playing Spintires: Mudrunner on my PS4, which released on consoles last week. What’s this, you say? Video game discussion on this here R/C page?

Yes, and I think in this case it goes hand-in-hand. Heck, I actually found out about this game from the crawling message boards.

Mudrunner has a very simple premise. In the main game, you are tasked with delivering logs throughout the Russian countryside in big trucks, battling the elements. There are also smaller, bite sized challenge missions that sort of serve as tutorials for the main part of the game.

You can visit other sites for a complete review, as that’s not what I’m going to do here. Instead, I want to quickly describe why I love it and think you should try it if you enjoy scaling. Here’s the trailer showing off some gameplay.

Vehicle damage, fuel consumption, weight, winching, towing and hauling trailers; it all plays a part.

While driving massive log wagons is fun, my favorite part of Mudrunner is getting to wheel the UAZ-469 and crawling around. There is a specific challenge mission that tasks you with taking not one, but two of them up a mountain. This is a ton of fun and when using the external camera view, it feels like I’m outside wheeling one of my r/c rock crawlers.

It’s not all roses however, as the game can be vague in telling you what to do and the camera can get really wonky at times. However, I think the good far outweighs the bad. This is an awesome off-road simulation.

If you, like me, think that one of the most fun things to do in a Grand Theft Auto game is taking a 4×4 and going off to climb the countryside, well, this is basically a game totally devoted to that with much improved physics. If you are interested enough in crawling to read this column, there is a good chance you’ll dig it too. It’s a great stand-in for scaling!