Sega Gamer's Day 2000: Sega Announces US Release of 18 Wheeler

Today Sega announced the US release of 18 Wheeler: American Pro Trucker at its Executive Gamers Summit. The arcade trucker game, which was recently released for the Dreamcast in Japan, contains over 20 stages that take place over four different levels.

The game's various modes include arcade, parking challenge, score attack, and versus mode. 18 Wheeler has a look that is similar to Crazy Taxi, but the textures look a lot better than Sega's previous driving game. New to the US version of the game is SegaNet support, which will let you play two-player games over the Internet.

The game controls quite well, and has a pretty interesting slipstream feature - if you get right behind another rig, you'll get caught up in the rig's wake and earn a little speed boost. The game is also heavy on destruction - you'll crash through gates, ruin covered bridges, and simply roll over smaller vehicles as if they weren't even there.

Look for an import review of 18 Wheeler soon on GameSpot VG, and look for the SegaNet-enabled US version to hit stores in Spring of 2001.