The goal of Extreme Forklifting 2 is to pick up pallets and put them down somewhere else in the industrial yard. You pick up one at a time. Each run is timed, but the time doesn't start until you pick the pallet up. There are also time trials in which you have to just drive the forklift from one place to another, as fast as possible, hitting targets on the way. If you like driving simulators, you might like this game for a little while. If you don't like driving simulators at all, take a pass. Actually, now that I think about it... if I were under the influence of legal mood/mind altering substances, this would be the best, most hilarious game I've ever played.
When you start the game, you're driving a plain forklift wearing a regular hard hat.
On the white arc around your forklift, there is a white arrow. This shows you the direction you need to go to find your pallet that you need to pick up. Sometimes the pallets talk to you.
The green arrows let you know when you have the fork correctly aimed at the pallet. Then you just drive forward, raise the fork a little, and back up in order to pick the pallet up.
You can change the view and adjust the camera angle to make it easier to see where the fork is compared to the pallet.
After you pick up the pallet, you have to find the target destination.
When you drop a pallet off on its target, the game displays an adjective of praise for your hard work. It always has "fork" in it. Aaaand, moving on...
Immediately following the adjective popping up that tells you that you did great, you get a screen showing you how you actually really didn't. The money you get is reduced based on how long you took to deliver the pallet and any damage the pallet took in the process. If the pallet is destroyed, it disappears and you have to go look for the next one.
If you take too long, then you don't get paid for that delivery.
What's this curious ring on the floor??
It takes you to the red room... which has absolutely nothing in it other than another ring to get out. Why did they include this in the game??? It serves no purpose whatsoever!
You will not get a new record on your time trial if you crash the forklift.
If you do get stuck somewhere or fall over and can't use the fork to get yourself back vertical, you can "reset the forklift".
If you're not carrying a pallet, feel free to explore the grounds sandbox style. I recommend the high ground because you can kind of get the lay of the land.
I guess when you get all the achievements you beat the game? Of course you can always just keep going and see how many pallets you can deliver and how much money you can make and how fast you can complete the time trials.
But as you complete achievements you can customize your forklift more and more. Here's flames on the side and a sombrero instead of a hard hat.
Are you a speed freak? The third option for head apparel is the black motorcycle helmet. And here's one spoiler option. Wait, there's another spoiler option??
This is when I decided I'd beat the game! Completing all the achievements lets you unlock all of the customizations. I figure a forklift driver with a huge obnoxious spoiler, rainbow vinyl, and a fruit hat has pretty much won at life.
AUTHOR INFORMATION
The realism, quality, extent of details, and size of the world don't merit a score as high as 6... maybe more like 5. However, this game doesn't need ANY of that to make it work. The developer's made the the graphics just quality enough to get the job done, but the game can still be played easily and smoothly on computers that don't have the latest and greatest graphics hardware. For that choice, I'm bumping up the score here slightly. When you're up on the roof of a building, you can see over the outer wall of the "world" and it's just grey nothingness. No biggie. I can forgive that. One time when my forklift was on its side, I could see the red room that is underground. Interesting glitch, but whatever.
Standard sound effects. Limited rock soundtrack. You can choose on or off for both. No other options.
Controls are simple. You have forward, reverse, left, and right with WSAD. There's fork up, fork down, fork left, and fork right with the arrow keys. And camera panning left and right with Q and E. You have exactly what you need and nothing that you don't. Apparently, you can also use other interfaces such as a steering wheel and pedals? That's a neat feature. There's also haptic feedback that you can enable.
There really is no storyline. Other than the achievements, there's really nothing to follow along with or accomplish unless you set your own goals of a certain money level or beating a certain time on the various time trials. There was no notice when I finished all the achievements. It just keeps going on and on and on. I stopped before it became boring, but it would eventually with no changes in gameplay other than a few limited customization options for the forklift itself.
PROS / CONS
- The physics engine related to steering with the back wheels and tipping over easily.
- Just the right amount of detail in the graphics.
- Slightly amusing customization options.
- Not very substantial gameplay.
- Disappointingly unrealistic idea of moving pallets from point a to b.
- You can stand up a fallen forklift without getting out of the vehicle.
- No real purpose of the game.
- You can't tip the fork back to keep the center of mass over the wheels better.
