Cargo, Please! – Review
Have you ever been frustrated with a delivery driver? No need to answer that one, because we’ve all been there. Now, you might’ve thought to yourself that you’d be so much more efficient when it comes to package deliveries. If that’s the case, then it’s time to put your money where your mouth is, as far as indie dev Cyber752 Games is concerned. Their latest title, Cargo, Please! (not to be confused with CarGo!) gives you the opportunity to put your package handling skills to the test. Should you expedite shipping the game to your Steam Library or is this a delivery attempt worth skipping?
Story
Appropriately enough, Cargo, Please! wastes little time on its narrative. Time is money, after all, and this is doubly true if you are a delivery driver. Your uncle Gus is going out of town for a while, and he wants you to take care of a couple of deliveries for him. It turns out that Uncle Gus’ regular clientele aren’t necessarily the most law-abiding citizens, though, and your dealings with these shady characters quickly put you on the radar of the local law enforcement. That’s about everything you need to know about the game’s narrative, although we feel like we should point out just how poorly Cargo, Please! is written. We’re not entirely sure whether it’s intentional or if the game is simply very poorly translated, but Uncle Gus speaks in broken English and the game’s menus are riddled with mistakes when it comes to spelling and grammar. We’re not native English speakers ourselves, but we’re still pretty sure that ‘pickuped’ isn’t a proper English word.
Graphics
If there is one thing that Cargo, Please! is lacking, it’s a visual identity. The game looks ridiculously generic, to the point where we wouldn’t be surprised if it was cobbled together from a bunch of pre-existing assets. That doesn’t need to be a bad thing per se, especially for a game like this where the focus is pretty much entirely on the gameplay instead of visual splendor. However, the game’s performance isn’t up to snuff either. Frame drops and stuttering are very common, particularly when there is a lot of on-screen action. Not only that, but the game suffers from uneven resolution, resulting in a slightly blurry look at times.
Sound
Audio fares better than visuals, but only barely so. Voice acting is entirely absent, although we weren’t exactly surprised given Cargo, Please!’s low-budget nature. Sound effects are functional and serviceable but nothing special. Music is surprisingly varied, but it also feels all over the place, ranging from hip-hop beats to smooth jazz. The vibe of the music doesn’t always match the fast-paced gameplay, making it feel out of place. Just like with the game’s visuals, we’re going to assume that pre-existing material was used rather than that original tunes were composed for the game.
Gameplay
Despite what you might’ve assumed based on the game’s title, Cargo, Please! isn’t a logistics-themed version of Papers, Please!, although that should already have been clear by this point. Instead, you’re getting a top-down delivery simulator game that feels surprisingly similar to the very first GTA game. The core gameplay loop is simple enough: check your phone for delivery jobs, colour-coded for your convenience. Take on a job, pick up the cargo, and bring it from point A to point B. When you complete a delivery, you’ll earn money and a rating, based on things like whether or not the package was damaged and how fast you were able to do the job. Earnings are used to buy higher-tier vehicles, which will let you take on more demanding jobs, rinse and repeat. It’s not the most groundbreaking core gameplay loop, but Cargo, Please! has a secret ingredient up its sleeve: crime.
Between you and your customers’ money stand pesky things like traffic rules and the police. Get caught running a red light or driving through a one-way street in the wrong direction, and you’ll be fined, but if you can get away with violating the rules, you’ll be able to clear jobs much quicker, netting you more earnings in the process. Some of the better-paying jobs also task you with delivering illegal goods, and that means avoiding the police at all costs. Missions are procedurally generated, meaning that no two runs are the same, although it’s worth mentioning that this also can make the game feel unfair and unbalanced at times. Fortunately, the fast-paced pick-up-and-play nature of the game makes it so that it’s easy to quickly recover from a failed delivery.
One thing we absolutely do recommend is playing the game with a controller. Our initial mouse-and-keyboard attempt was frustrating because of the game’s fiddly control scheme. Seemingly simple actions like picking up cargo and placing it in the back of our vehicle or parking in the designated zone were particularly convoluted. Once we switched to a controller, it was smooth sailing, however. Cargo, Please! is also quite the sizable game, with tons of vehicles to purchase, each with their own specifics, three unlockable cities to drive around in and several playable characters. In addition to the game’s main campaign, it also offers an additional mode in the form of Taxi Driver. Unsurprisingly, here you’re not moving cargo from one place to another, but people. You’re getting a lot of content for your €8.49, but given the overall roughness of the game, it’s a matter of quantity over quality here. That’s not to say that Cargo, Please! isn’t worth its RRP, but it’s not exactly a must-have either.
Conclusion
Please pardon the pun: Cargo, Please! doesn’t quite deliver. To the game’s credit, its core gameplay loop is functional, its GTA-inspired crime mechanics add a fun twist, and there is a ton of content for the price here. However, the overall lack of polish, including low-quality visuals, poorly translated writing and fiddly mouse-and-keyboard controls, undermines the overall experience. We recommend giving the game’s free Steam demo a try before you commit, but if that can’t convince you, then the full game won’t either.
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