{"id":111596,"date":"2020-04-15T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-15T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/totally_reliable_delivery_service"},"modified":"2020-04-15T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-04-15T15:00:00","slug":"review-totally-reliable-delivery-service-return-to-sender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2020\/04\/15\/review-totally-reliable-delivery-service-return-to-sender\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Totally Reliable Delivery Service &#8211; Return To Sender"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/b8ee06d595ba0\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/b8ee06d595ba0\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div id>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\" readability=\"2\"><a title=\"Totally Reliable Delivery Service Review - Screenshot 1 of 4\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/1044111\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/1044111\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Totally Reliable Delivery Service Review - Screenshot 1 of 4\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"generator nintendo-switch-handheld\">Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld\/Undocked)<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>We\u2019re quite sure game devs don\u2019t go out of their way to make a bad game. Normally, a game\u2019s quality \u2013 or lack thereof in many cases \u2013 is a direct result of budgetary limitations, time restrictions, unexpected bugs, and many, <em>many<\/em> more variables. It really feels, though, that We\u2019re Five Games are playing some kind of elaborate joke with <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/totally_reliable_delivery_service\">Totally Reliable Delivery Service<\/a><\/strong>, because this is one of the most frustratingly awkward, broken games we\u2019ve played in ages, and we get the distinct feeling that this was the developer&#8217;s intention \u2013 at least, to a certain degree.<\/p>\n<p>You take on the role of a delivery driver within a bland, ugly open-world consisting of a group of small islands, tasked with delivering packages to their intended destinations in the quickest time possible whilst minimising damage. You\u2019ll have access to a wide range of vehicles to assist in this task, including trucks, forklifts, helicopters, boats, and even hot air balloons. Or, if you wish, you can simply flex your muscles and carry the packages around manually. Either way, you\u2019re going to have a pretty bad time.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\" readability=\"2\"><a title=\"Totally Reliable Delivery Service Review - Screenshot 2 of 4\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/104415\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/104415\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Totally Reliable Delivery Service Review - Screenshot 2 of 4\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"generator nintendo-switch-handheld\">Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld\/Undocked)<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Things get pretty hairy right from the start. Like many games, Totally Reliable Delivery Service lets you know the basic controls via simple pops ups as you\u2019re walking around \u2013 it tells you that you can jump by pressing B, and dive by pressing A. We\u2019re not sure whether this was intentional or not, but these instructions are blatantly incorrect; in reality, jumping is mapped to A, and diving is mapped to B. It\u2019s baffling that the devs got such basic controls mixed up like this \u2013 our best guess is that these are the controls from the Xbox version, and they simply forgot to change them when bringing the game to the Switch, but a small part of us feels like they intentionally mixed the controls around to screw with players even more. If so, we\u2019re not impressed, and we don&#8217;t think you will be, either.<\/p>\n<p>The simple act of delivering your packages is no better. Granted, the game deliberately throws as many obstacles in your way as it possibly can, including exploding manholes and tree trunks rolling down hills, but even a simple task like picking up a box and hauling it into the back of a truck is <em>infuriatingly<\/em> complex.<\/p>\n<p>You directly control both of your arms, with the left mapped to ZL and the right mapped to ZR. In order to grab hold of packages, you\u2019ll need to hold both buttons down, but then in addition to this, you\u2019ll <em>also<\/em> need to hold down L and R to actually lift your arms up in the air. So, at various points in the game, you have to hold down all <em>four<\/em> shoulder buttons at the same time, which is as uncomfortable as it sounds.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\" readability=\"2\"><a title=\"Totally Reliable Delivery Service Review - Screenshot 3 of 4\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/104416\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/104416\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Totally Reliable Delivery Service Review - Screenshot 3 of 4\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"generator nintendo-switch-docked\">Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>The prospect of controlling such a wide variety of vehicles in the game is initially quite intriguing, but you\u2019ll quickly come to learn that nearly all of them operate in the same way (which is to say, very poorly). Each vehicle has a single control stick you can grab hold of with either hand, and you simply move the corresponding analogue stick in any direction to move around.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re smart about it, you could grab hold of the control stick with one hand and keep hold of your delivery with the other in order to minimise potential damage, but this is much harder to accomplish in practice. We lost count of the number of times our deliveries simply fell off whatever vehicle we were driving at the time due to no fault of our own \u2013 and in some cases the packages can explode on impact, meaning you\u2019ll need to start over from scratch.<\/p>\n<p>Completing deliveries successfully will grant you with money and a new cosmetic item with which to customise your character. There\u2019s no apparent way to actually spend your hard-earned cash, so aside from unlocking new clothing and accessories, there\u2019s little incentive to actually play the game as it was intended. You can completely customise your character right down to its gender, swapping out hairstyles, tops, trousers, and jewellery. Unfortunately, many of the items are locked behind paid DLC, and the game isn\u2019t particularly clear in pointing this out \u2013 so you might choose a cool-looking new accessory only for the game to throw up a message asking if you want to go to the online store. It\u2019s pretty egregious in its execution.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\" readability=\"2\"><a title=\"Totally Reliable Delivery Service Review - Screenshot 4 of 4\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/104413\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/104413\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Totally Reliable Delivery Service Review - Screenshot 4 of 4\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"generator nintendo-switch-docked\">Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>If you\u2019re going to play Totally Reliable Delivery Service, we\u2019d wholeheartedly recommend playing it with friends, if you can. Its intention is clearly to provide a bunch of laughs every time your delivery attempt falls to pieces, and whilst the game wasn\u2019t necessarily built for co-op play, having somewhere there to share in your pain is definitely more preferable to going it alone. In all honesty, though, you\u2019ll want to avoid this one at all costs. With more competent controls, this game would potentially fall into the \u2018so bad, it\u2019s good\u2019 category, but as it stands, it\u2019s just plain bad.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"conclusion\">\n<h2 class=\"heading\">Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>Totally Reliable Delivery Service feels like a bit of a prank. It\u2019s a game so doggedly determined to annoy you with its infuriating control scheme, shocking graphics and poor implementation of DLC, we can\u2019t imagine <em>anyone<\/em> genuinely enjoying it. The only scenario in which this would be a fun experience would be if you played it with a group of friends locally, but even then, the intended chaos of the game&#8217;s ragdoll physics feels completely anticlimactic, and instead, it just feels like an utter waste of time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld\/Undocked) We\u2019re quite sure game devs don\u2019t go out of their way to make a bad game. Normally, a game\u2019s quality \u2013 or lack thereof in many cases \u2013 is a direct result of budgetary limitations, time restrictions, unexpected bugs, and many, many more variables. It really feels, though, that We\u2019re [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}