Review: Euro Truck Simulator 2

Travel across Europe as king of the road, a trucker who delivers important cargo across impressive distances! With dozens of cities to explore from the UK, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and many more, your endurance, skill and speed will all be pushed to their limits. If you’ve got what it takes to be part of an elite trucking force, get behind the wheel and prove it!

Pros:

•  Graphics in the truck are incredibly detailed, right the way down to the buttons on the mobile phone! Outside of the truck and the graphics are still of a high quality. Road signs are distinctive and are shown exactly as they are in their respective countries. Draw distance is good and if your a native of a European country, you will feel right at home. 
• Tutorial is short but to the point. Giving new players all the info needed to get going in the game. It will run through view changing, using your GPS, steering, movement etc.
• Game supports keyboard and mouse, on a PC that is good information to have a necessary addition. Joking aside the game supports game pads and even steering wheels with pedals.
• Options for game play are plentiful. Choosing to set up your truck with either a full automatic gearbox, right up to the full on manual number. You really can make the game as hard or as easy as you feel confident with.
• The User Interface (UI) is clean, crisp and clutter free. Getting straight to the truth of it, it will just tell you straight up what each option does. You will always feel in control when it comes to tweaking the settings.
• Initially you pick a truck and theres a few on offer, an avatar for your character. Give yourself a name and name your company and what town you want to be based in,your set to go.
• The game has an RPG feel to it. You complete deliveries and earn XP that you use to upgrade your skills, customise options and even new trucks. Initially working for a boss, you later earn enough money to break off and make your own company, hiring and firing drivers, setting up deals. Despite all this management going on, thanks to the way the games designed, you are always aware of where you stand and know whats what.
• Sound is authentic, from the grumble of the various trucks down to the indicators, its all in there and keep it real.
• The best addition in game would be the GPS system. Sitting on the bottom of your screen, this gizmo will have all data you could possibly need at arms reach. Displaying jobs, current job, money earned, damage costs so far etc. Course it will tell you the way to go, you can change how it does that aswell. Either have it like your conventional Sat Nav or change it to a top down view. Essentially the GPS is your hub and can be accessed when ever you feel and can be turned off/on at will. You will use your GPS to call emergency services should you find yourself stuck or in a massive accident.
• The second best addition is the radio. Yep radio, for it allows you to play music off your PC instead of the in game music. Or and here is the money shot, it will use its in game internet radio stream service. Now with this you can listen to any radio station anywhere in europe. You havent lived until your firing down the motorway pumping some hardcore French dubstep out the window!

Cons:

• No driver model in the truck, so no hands turning the wheel or feet operating the pedals. Its passable, but it would of just helped to keep the player immersed.
• AI cars have zero road skills, pulling out of junctions when they really shouldn’t be. Have a crash and you will see how the car will refuse to move, usually resulting in you hitting them again and again.
• At first the learning curve for driving is quite steep, an indicator on the wheel would be nice so you know how much turning you are doing. Not much of a problem if using a wheel, but with the keyboard can get messy.
• Longer hauls can overstay their welcome and drag on.
• Every now and then you will feel lost and alone, usually when you first start out organizing a job or hiring drivers.
• The car models are the weakest looking graphics, looking blocky and unrecognizable.

In Summary, The game is excellent, even if your not a trucking fan, you should check it out. The satisfaction you get from completing deliveries is surprisingly high. Air fist pumps and scream of joy are surprising but justified. Don’t look at the game and think its easy. It isn’t in any shape or form. Complacency is your enemy. You may think your just having a nice gentle cruise down the dual carriage way, but you got to remember your speed limit, if your haul is safe and of course speed cameras. Failing any of these will result in fines.  Overall the game is extremely enjoyable and a great Sunday afternoon game session. Whack on a podcast and deliver them goods!