Code Horizon, the developers of ‘Gold Mining Simulator’ and ‘911 Operator’, bring you their latest title to XBOX as of 10th July 2025. ‘Giant Machines 2017 boasts seven of the largest machines on the planet, and you get to be behind them all on a journey across fourteen missions as you attempt to send a space shuttle to the International Space Station, but it is no small journey as you cross six geographical locations.

The main premise, as stated, is to send a space shuttle into space. This begins with moving ore. You will take control of the miner that will extract the ore from the land, and then get into the dumper to collect and then deliver.

The first machine is so large, you have stairs and ladders you need to use to traverse and get the machine repaired and ready. I learnt, like my old mum used to say, ‘do not run down the stairs’; a great bit of advice for this, as it hurts and kills you if you fall, even at a slight height drop.

Getting into the cockpit to turn on the claws to cut into the land can be troublesome, as you can break the machine if you push it too far. But there is not a lot of guidance on this, and it is trial and error. This is the whole title going forward. Small objectives that, unfortunately, seem like fun become tedious and infuriating at times.

I won’t go much more into the objectives or story, but your main task is to take control of some of the biggest industrial machines in the world. It is quite short overall and is fluffed out with the tasks taking time to understand and get used to as you work on jobs all over the world.

This brings me onto the controls, as the machines have so many moving parts, getting used to the controls takes time, patience and a lot of skill when you’re in a machine that needs so much precision. Once you get into the swing of things, see what I did there? You will feel accomplished in completing the tasks.

The sound and music in the game are quite standard, but it gets the job done overall in setting with the gaming aesthetics, with the choice of in-game radio stations to keep you entertained while in the cockpit of these beastly machines. But with a lot in the game, I have no experience in these fields. So, judging the sounds and realism overall of the title is based on my perception of what it could be like.

Graphically, unfortunately, it doesn’t hold up well to today’s standards, with some areas feeling very bland and the cockpit views having little to no life in them. But in some cases, you can forgive these flaws, but at times, you must switch between several camera angles to get the job done, as we said at the beginning, the machines are large! So, you will see the graphics in all sorts of angles, and they just do not add much to the experience.

Overall, the game gives you an experience most will never have in their lifetime. It just didn’t entertain me enough, sadly, even with a story-based system to experience all the workings of the machine, as the objectives all just seemed underwhelming. I couldn’t recommend this title,e unfortunately, but for simulation fans and anyone with an interest in this niche market may like to have it under their gaming experience belt.

Written by: Kevin Lal