Path to Platinum: FIA European Truck Racing Championship

FIA European Truck Racing Championship platinum trophy

Difficulty: 2/10

Fun: 5/10

Online Trophies: None

Time: 20-30 hours

The Rundown

FIA European Truck Racing Championship (Yes, I know it's a mouthful) is the officially licensed racing game of, you guessed it, the FIA European Truck Racing Championship. Instead of the usual fast cars, FIA will have you racing hulking behemoths across multiple tracks for glory with a capped speed limit of 160 km/h.

The vehicles themselves are fine to drive, but handle like you would expect any truck on a racing track to; they're very fragile and can oversteer or spin out if not handled delicately. There's also damage and maintaining the temperature of the breaks, but both of these can be turned off to make the platinum journey a lot smoother. Plus, you can tackle the game in easy mode with the race lengths set to 25% which is 3 laps (though these still take around 7/8 minutes given the speed and handling of the trucks).

Straight Forward List

The trophy list for FIA is very straightforward and doesn't require any online play to obtain the trophy. The game requires you to complete the licence challenges (Only needing to hit Bronze), win a season, and obtain 4000 reputation points in each ETRC & World Series. Outside of that, you'll need to win at least one race on each track, plus get the odd miscellaneous trophies. Although most of these will all come naturally as you go for the 4000 reputation points in each series.

The 2 trophies that sound difficult are 'A Mechanic's Dream', which involves winning a race without taking any damage, but you can actually earn the trophy with no damage switched on, so it becomes one of the easiest. The other trophy, 'Snatching Victory', requires you to win a race after starting in last place, but you'll easily get this during your run for the platinum.

The best way to describe the FIA is to say it's fine. It does the job of a competent racer, but the handling of the vehicles, whilst being something new, isn't anything I will ever go back to after netting the Platinum trophy. The list was simple, and I believe it took around the lower end of the 20-30 hours mark, but I did hit a glitch that meant I needed to rerun one of the World Series seasons.

There aren't many accessible racing games to platinum out there that don't demand a good amount of skill or online play. So it's a nice platinum option for racing fans who like an easy enough racer without a demanding trophy list. Like I said before, though, as a game, it's okay, but some design issues meant this platinum journey became an irritating journey at times.

Frustrations & Penalties

One of the biggest issues I faced in the game was the penalty system. It just seemed completely inconsistent and would penalise so infrequently that it became annoying. For instance, if you hit another driver at a certain speed, you could incur a 5-second penalty, although I've hit drivers faster than the penalising speed and got away with a warning, and in other races, I've glanced past another driver and incurred the penalty.

It can make overtaking in races feel risky, plus I once oversteered a corner and knocked over a cone on the far side of the tarmac, which saw the game hit me with a 30-second penalty on the final corner of a race, which felt wild. It's not deal-breaking, but it's worth noting that it can become rather frustrating at times.

On top of that, the AI can be rather rigid when cruising around the track as they try not to veer too far from their set path. As a result, the trucks can bump into you or run you off the road by spinning you out as they refuse to slow down or move. That being said, I did play on easy so the AI wouldn't be the most challenging, but they should at least react to what's going on around them more than they do. Still, all that being said, it doesn't occur frequently enough that it becomes a deal breaker.

During my playtime, I also encountered a glitch that saw me finish the World Series season, but made me unable to end it. The only way around was to delete my save and rerun the series from the beginning, which meant I had to complete an extra season than was initially required for the trophy. I'm not sure how often this happened with other gamers, but it's worth pointing out that it glitched to me.

Overall FIA European Truck Racing Championship was a competent racer with a very simple trophy list. Despite some frustrating AI and systems, the game was an alright time, and I'm glad I hit the platinum. For those looking for another racing platinum and happy to dip in and out, it's probably worthwhile. It's not the best racer out there, but it's good enough for those seeking another platinum in the genre.