Better than expected.
- Gameplay and Control -
In this game you take on the persona of a professional truck driver in Europe. The game's premise is simple, you earn money for transporting material from one city to another - the longer the haul, the more money you make. As you progress in the game you can operate your own trucking company and hire drivers, purchase trucks and manage the financial aspects of your business. The game is open ended in that you can just drive if that's the only thing that interests you or you can mix in the business management side of things if you want. The business management aspect is not particularly rigorous and probably won't satisfy most gamers exclusive of the driving.
The game's control boils down to two questions, how do you want to steer and how do you want to shift. You can steer with a mouse, with your keyboard, or with other peripheral controllers. As for shifting, you can choose from one of four different methods starting with an automatic transmission for the casual gamer all the up to the realism of an H-shifter gearbox. The variety of control options is such that there's likely an option that's right for you. The game's menus are intuitive featuring graphic buttons with labels.
- Sights & Sounds -
This is a pretty game. It's not necessarily photo-realistic but the objects in the game are well modeled, textures are generally of high-quality and the game makes good use of lighting. The game's visuals do an adequate job of conveying the dynamic environments you'll be visiting throughout Europe. In-game sounds are good and contribute to the immersion of driving a real truck. You have the option of mapping your own music for in-game listening pleasure or you can opt to listen to one of several real European streaming radio stations. I really love the in-game streaming radio and would love to see this functionality in other gaming tiles.
- Summary -
Euro Truck Simulator 2 is a good game. I downloaded the demo with the intention of poking fun about its gameplay with my gaming buddies only to find a thoroughly enjoyable experience. I've since purchased the game on Steam and have enjoyed well over 40 hours of transporting mundane objects all over Europe. I would recommend this game to anyone that is remotely interested in it.
