Driving games are generally all about going fast, putting the pedal to the metal, hearing the shriek of tyres, and savouring the joyous orchestration of cylinders, gears and crankshafts as they work in unison. That is not what over the hill is about. Instead, this is a driving game that’s about just driving, placing the emphasis on exploration, taking your time, and going wherever the wind takes you. It is the driving game equivalent of a warming tomato soup: mindful, good for the soul, and occasionally a bit messy.
Starting our journey off in The Valhalla Ranges of Canada, the opening immediately surprised me with the appearance of a giant, cross-legged statue emerging from a lake. There’s then a wonderful moment where a giant golden statue has a conversation with a green Land Rover, divulging the origins of off-road driving, and setting you off on a journey of exploration and adventure.
over the hill lets you know from the outset that this might be a hard journey. Taking a note from the MudRunner school of environmentally challenging driving simulators, over the hill puts you in the midst of tricky terrain and lets you loose across it, though where Saber Interactive’s series focuses on realism and, well, mud, over the hill boasts a lovely chunky aesthetic, and is more willing to take things (slightly) easy on you, if you so desire.
The first step on that particular path is the ability to drive with an automatic gearbox over a manual transmission, though you still have the much-needed option of moving between high and low-range gearing to get you through the rough stuff where you need more traction.
The MudRunner and SnowRunner comparisons get stronger when you get stuck. Here you can utilise the winch to pull yourself out of whatever sticky situation you’ve slid your way into, and there’s both an automatic winch and a manual one with finer control. If you’ve played any of the Runner games, it’s instantly familiar, and you won’t be stuck for too long. Probably.
After the brief tutorial, you’re introduced to your mechanic, Crazy Günther. This bearded fellow is more than willing to upgrade your vehicle for Pebbles, which certainly does bring into question his sanity – even if his name wasn’t already Crazy Günther. From here you can also change vehicles once you’ve unlocked them, alter your tool loadout, and customise the look of your chosen off-roader as well. It’s a nice, simple system, that gives you some further sense of progression and focus.
This game certainly channels the same meditative vibe as its off-roading peers, giving you a series of giant maps, peppered with a few points of interest and fast travel points to lurch your way towards. That said, there’s also Challenge Trails to come across, out in the wilderness, with sections that are going to push your route-finding and driving skills to the limit.
You do have to be careful in over the hill. Not just with where you’re putting your wheels, but in how you look after your car. Crashing into rocks, hammering down slopes, or really anything that corresponds to a nasty bounce will affect your vehicles condition, with a great big spanner icon flashing up whenever you’ve taken things too far. It genuinely doesn’t take much to set it off, and I feel like I’m generally a very careful driver. Fortunately, whenever you find a camping site/hut, your vehicle repairs, and hopefully, you hold it together for the long sections in between.
over the hill is a vibe. A massive part of its vaguely cosy, but undeniably chill outlook is its beautiful acoustic guitar-led music, bringing country and Americana tones to its off-road driving, expanding the sense of adventure and wide-open spaces spectacularly well. You are often just trying to get from one point to the next, happening upon crates full of new cosmetics, or scenic points to take a picture, and it’s one of those games that sucks time out of your day with very little friction.
There is, of course, some friction when you can’t get where you want to, but the underlying challenge of dragging yourself through mud, water and boulders is like a puzzle game, albeit with a winch instead of keys and blocks to slide around. Just like the Runner series, the journey is often more important than the destination, and hard won moments, those times where you’ve persevered despite repeated failures, feel just as relevant and invigorating here.
For all that it doesn’t look as realistic as Saber’s series, over the hill manages to generate the same level of realism, and the same sense of exploration, within its driving mechanics and its atmosphere. Whether the sun is shining, the wind is howling through the trees, or you’re caught in a fast-falling blizzard, FunSelektor have created a lived-in landscape, that you can’t help but want to explore, if only to see, well, what’s over the hill.
If I have one minor quibble, it’s where your vehicle doesn’t quite react to the landscape and obstacles in the way you’re expecting. There might be the odd bit of physics shenanigans when you’re trying to drive over a log, or the winch might pull you at an unexpected angle, but it’s not something that’s wholly unique to over the hill. The art style can also make reading the landscape a little harder than if it was photorealistic, though you start to learn what represents sheer rock or pools of water soon enough. Mostly as you slide down them, into a ditch.
