Euro Truck Simulator 2: Slow Ride

Games
1

Euro Truck Simulator 2 has finally been released. After years of waiting, we can finally witness first hand the trials and tribulations that a truck driver must deal with while skirting around Europe.

This may sound like the most boring game ever made, and you are correct.

However, it recreates the experience amazingly well. The graphic engine is quite good, but moreso, an incredible amount of effort was put into recreating the geography of Europe. Imagine Test Drive Unlimited, but with all of England and northern Europe represented in a condensed but lovingly recreated manner. All of the geography from the low lying grasslands of the Netherlands, to the winding roads of the Swiss alps are all represented:

The overarching game is based around making cargo runs between European cities. All the money you make can be used to modify both the aesthetic and functioning aspects of your truck. Eventually you will make enough money to purchase several trucks, and hire drivers to drive these trucks to make money for your shipping company. Every truck is modeled very well, both exterior and interior:

scania_interior_002.jpg1200×670

The entire experience is incredibly laid back. You drive between European cities through the countryside, soaking in the amazing job the graphics team has done recreating every nuance of the European road system.

The game is extremely polished. Massive thunderstorms pelt down, gorgeous sunsets and sunrises are modeled exceptionally well. Northern Scotland’s rolling fields are modeled, as well as the dense forests of Germany.

It has a personal connection with me in the most ridiculous nuance that they chose to implement:

I’ve been going to Europe for years to travel to various music festivals in remote areas. My friends and I always rent a car and drive to these festivals, and have the radio tuned to whatever is playing in the region. This game has about 50 different European streaming radio stations that you can tune into while driving around between your various destinations. This adds so much to the experience it’s kind of uncanny how it taps into the exact feeling I had driving around Europe.

If you want a relaxing and gorgeous CaRpg, you definitely should check this out. It’s available on their website for $39, but if you wait until next week you can get it on Green Man Gaming for about $25 using their front page coupon.

EDIT: There’s a demo at the link above

2

If they put that much effort into the roads and weather and graphics, it is a damn shame all you can do is drive a truck.

3

I think the give away is in the iutle :). If you don’t wan to drive a truck, don’t buy a truck simulator.

4

You almost make me want to play it. I understand you.

5

Yea, my thought exactly. Imagine Arma on a map like that!

6

CaRpg

Do I even want to know what this stands for?

7

I wish the Railworks guys would take a page out of this team’s book. I’d love Railworks if it was more of a look at pretty scenery while riding a train simulator.

8

That is oddly appealing. The boredom of driving a truck would probably kill it for me, though. I wish someone would create a flightsim with as much attention paid to the idea of running a cargo hauling business. There are a few add-ons for Microsoft Flight Sim, but they are pretty kludgy.

9

An RPG in which you’re a car?

10

See, this is another example (see Kinect) of why I will never fit-in with any kind of “gamer” crowd.

I LOVE this idea, and only wish there was some kind of “Bandit” mode.
I also wish it was set in the USA.

I also think “CaRPG” is kind of clever (but then that is probably because when I worked for Hot Wheels we tried to sell the company on a Hot Wheels Pokemon style game and we called it a CaRPG).

I’m downloading the demo now.

11

What’s amusing is that a lot of the hardcore train simmers think Railworks is exactly that.

Put it in basic driver mode and I think it delivers what you’re after, especially the latest version. It’s a pretty good looking game with the settings maxed up and they fixed most of the performance issues that prevented it running smoothly on high settings in the latest iteration.

12

If they ever create a zombie expansion like Railworks did, I’ll be all over this game.

13

Is the demo time-limited (I hate those), or just limited to a certain area?

edit: Nevermind. Found the info:

The downloaded game has no time limit on the play time, however access to some of the game areas is limited until activated. Play free to see if you like the game, and to check whether it is compatible with your computer.

14

Pffft, this is nothing compared to the sheer amount of awesome that is Farming simulator. Drive big tractors, in straight lines, in a field.

Oddly, I found it far more engaging than I should have.

15

What’s not to like?

16

Hot Wheels combined with Pokemon!? Good Lord! I want this NOW!

17

That’s nuts. Is Europe to scale, or have they compressed the distances (a la San Andreas?). I’m flabbergasted by the sheer amount of apparent content. I guess it is an ideal game for every young boy, if you’re a parent looking to engage your kid without having him put bullets in people and cars through walls.

that said, yeah, how cool would it be to set the world in some weird truck bandit game, like Pirates! on wheels.

18

If they made a Cannonball Run or Gumball Rally style game in this engine I would play the sh*t out of that game.

19

I don’t know about this one, but I played the demo of UK Truck Simulator a couple of years ago and you could drive from London to Manchester faster than it would take to get out of London IRL.

20

It saddens me that we’ve reached a point where there’s apparently a larger market for people interested in driving sim-trucks than in flying sim-planes.