Like a parcel that was left out in the rain by the postman because ‘you weren’t in’, Totally Reliable Delivery Service will leave you disappointed, frustrated and clamouring for the Customer Service number to complain. For all intents and purposes, TRDS is poor: poorly designed, poorly packaged and poorly delivered.
Developed by We’re Five Games and published by tinyBuild, TRDS is an interactive sandbox world whereby you are tasked with delivering packages in the most unlikely of places, with a variety of vehicles at your disposal. Load an explosive barrel into a helicopter and deliver it to a skyscraper. Carry a fragile box of staples and get them to the office. Place a suspicious-looking nuclear box at the start of a zipline. There is evidence of creativity here, but no sooner than the objective has been given does the game start to combust.
The ‘unpredictable’ ragdoll physics – as advertised on the Nintendo eShop – are quite possibly some of the worst seen to date. Even the characters gait is nonsense, ensuring that every part of this game is difficult to control. Whilst you may be given independent movement of your characters arms and you can run, jump and dive, TRDS makes it difficult to even load a parcel onto your vehicle. Assuming you do manage to without becoming incredibly frustrated and turning the game off, it won’t be long before those ragdoll physics take centre stage again and you fail the delivery as the package gets damaged beyond repair – a perfect metaphor if ever we’ve written one.
Texture pop-in, frame-rate dips and ugly assets complete the TRDS package and ensure that any potential fun that could have been had is dead on arrival. It’s a shame as the premise is a good one and the open world could have had a lot to offer, but performance issues, a lack of polish and an infuriating control scheme have put a stop to it all. That’s before the incredibly long loading times, disengaging customisation options and the barely functioning online multiplayer are mentioned.
Multiplayer is where a game like this would shine, yet performance issues and a lack of games available means this part of TRDS is almost non-existent. Rife with connection problems and poor performance, TRDS is lagging – quite literally – behind the online multiplayer competition. Any fleeting moments where the game can be enjoyed are resigned to local multiplayer, yet even then it is a shallow experience.
The physics engine does make for some flashes of comedy brilliance, but the game doesn’t reward you for it. Goat Simulator, an equally absurd ragdoll physics-based open world game, succeeds where TRDS doesn’t in actively encouraging the sublime and the ridiculous with missions that result in destruction and chaos, whereas TRDS hinders you for it by grading your success based on the damage to the package and how long it took to deliver.
It is rare that a game has no redeeming features, yet TRDS is one such example. The ‘No Returns Policy’ on the Nintendo eShop will leave players aggrieved as they stare out the window waiting for a sizeable update to arrive. Even then, it’s likely that the damage will have already been done and the enjoyment and excitement of a new delivery will have worn off. It’s a shame as the concept behind TRDS has potential, the similarities to Crazy Taxi suggests that, but this tiny build needs A LOT of work.
Totally Reliable Delivery Service £13.49
Summary
The only thing you can safely rely on with Totally Reliable Delivery Service is that it will fail to deliver an experience worth playing and will leave you wishing you could print a postage label and return to sender.