Bridge Constructor (Xbox One) Review

Bridge Constructor puts players into the shoes of an engineer for a small country where all bridges were recently destroyed in a major natural disaster. It is your job to rebuild the bridges and get traffic moving again. Initially, the bridges built are made of simple wood, but over the course of the game, some bridges allow for use of concrete pillars, high-tension cables, and steel girders. Unfortunately, this small, impoverished country seems to have very little funds to restore its recently-destroyed infrastructure; there is a budget that must be adhered to.

You cannot build beyond the budget that is imposed, so you have to think incredibly carefully about how to build the bridges. Each one built must be able to support two vehicles crossing at one time without collapsing, and this is how levels are completed. Points are earned according to how under budget players are; bonus points can be gained if heavier vehicles are sent across and they make it to the other side, but building bridges that can support the greater weight without buckling is generally more difficult. A perfectionist can expect to see a great many bridges fail to sustain the weight of the vehicles rolling across them and fall apart like a house of cards in a windstorm, grinding progress to a halt until either a configuration that works is found or you succeed due to sheer dumb luck.

Seeing as the Xbox One version of Bridge Constructor uses the system's gamepad as its method of input, a minor loss of precision can be seen, particularly when building around the edges of the video screen. Go too fast and some mistakes in the building will be noticed that you have to go back to redo. These, however, are minor complaints, and you will quickly learn to adjust your viewpoint to keep the placement reticle away from the edge of the screen.