The folks at SCS Software released a big patch for Euro Truck Simulator 2, along with a Scandinavia DLC, so I decided it was a good time to revisit the game and give some commentary on it and the expansion. Just as a quick disclaimer: as much as I criticise this game and approach it with sarcasm, I do really like it.
To start with a few technical things, the patch consists of pretty standard bug fixes and general improvements like improved braking physics and more realistic sound effects for certain truck models. However, the game is still pretty poorly optimised and though it’s still extremely playable on a wide range of graphics cards, if you want 60fps with the very highest settings, you probably need a high-end graphics card.
The expansion adds a load of new cities in Scandinavia to deliver goods to and a load of goods to deliver, along with some new companies. Obviously this kind of DLC isn't there to re-invent the game or add many new features, but instead give existing fans a bit more space to roam in and a reason to pick up the game again and get some more hours out of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpybgwVnTp8
While loading up the game and looking forward to driving through the epic Norwegian fjords in my Volvo truck, appropriately listening to Ennio Moricone, I suddenly remembered that ETS2 is a game which makes you work for your enjoyment. To get to the much coveted fjords, I would have to drive my way up there, delivering dairy produce and tractor parts as I go. Obviously real life truckers can’t simply “quick travel” to locations, and if they could, they would very quickly find themselves out of employment.
Ennio Moricone would have to wait as I rather sluggishly made my way from Luxembourg - the headquarters of my company (Pointless Freight) - up through the low countries to Denmark, where I would cross over into Sweden using thebridge from that television series, then eventually Norway. Incidentally, Luxembourg was chosen for financial reasons: not because ETS2 simulates tax avoidance, but because apparently the country has the lowest fuel prices in Western Europe.
After planning my route up to Scandinavia and selecting what goods I would take to the first location, the first major flaw of the game manifested itself in the form of a giant dark grey area where Finland should be. Apparently, SCS Software does not seem to think that Finland is in Scandinavia, a fact which I’m sure will upset our editor Samsai. As history has taught us, one shouldn’t upset Finnish people.
After this initial disappointment, I remembered that ETS2 is an accurate simulator of real life haulage and logistics, and that real life is full of disappointments, which the game had already a good job of conveying. Like in real life, when faced with adversity, you move on and make lemonade from the lemons you just spent £13.59 on: ETS2 is also a provider of great life lessons. Unfortunately, Euro Truck Simulator has neither lemonade nor lemons in its list of goods, so I opted for 21 tonnes of chlorine instead.
One thing that I was quite fearful of when reading the patch notes was that they claimed to have improved the AI in the game. This would have been another major let down since it would have robbed us of the game’s principle villain: the motorist. Fortunately, it soon became apparent after a red hatchback cut me off and forced me to slam on the brakes - nearly causing a chemical spill in the Belgian countryside - that the AI still took its code from the HAL 9000 and GlaDOS and was as evil as ever, leaving the villains in place.
The motorists on ETS2 are the epitome of video game bad guys, as heartless as Sephiroth, as annoying as “Rival” from Pokemon Red & Blue and with the personality of the ghosts from Pac Man. But Rotterdam needed its chlorine and I wasn’t going to let some evil motorists get in the way, so I decided to drive the entire 350km in the middle of two lanes just to annoy them. The game is also far more fun if you imagine back stories for the villains. At one point, I made single, middle-aged, cat-loving tax auditor swerve into a tree.
That ought to put an end to their madness.
Day 2
Once in Rotterdam, I was tasked with transporting some canned pork to the Swedish city of Goteborg. It was at this point when I started recalling some of the excellent social commentary this game provides on our post-modern society. As I’m carrying this canned swine to Sweden, messages are constantly appearing in the bottom-right hand corner of the screen, reminding me that funds being deducted from my bank account in the form of loan instalments at a 17% interest rate. ETS2 was now going out of its way to remind me that if I did not keep on working, the imaginary family of my imaginary trucker would be sold into slavery by debt collectors.
If there is a game which could summarise contemporary society it is this one. To grow your trucking empire you have no choice but to take out numerous loans at extortionate prices, and in order to pay them back you have to keep working without pause, endlessly wandering through the post-industrial concrete and asphalt behemoths that carve up Europe’s once beautiful countryside, now tarnished in the name of industry and progress. All this so that those gluttonous motorists can consume their canned pork, though I rather wish it was the chlorine instead.
Wage slavery aside, and obviously recognising that this social commentary is not intentional (as far as I’m aware), it is rather tragic that our armless, bodiless protagonist does nothing other than work and sleep. All he (and the player) has to look forward to is some form of material attainment through acquiring garish depictions of half-naked viking women painted on the truck, or some very loud air horns to terrify the motorists.
Perhaps the most tragic aspect of this is achieving complete fulfilment. What happens when the truck is covered in lights and shiny wheels and the protagonist has consumed everything the game has to offer? There is but a void, nothing more to desire, no incentive to work and life thus loses its meaning. The bittersweet tragedy is that all those hours spent doing backbreaking work, doing nothing but driving and sleeping seem rather pointless since the rush of consuming those accessories lasted only a brief moment before the comedown arrived in the form of shackling debt - the constant reminders of which were appearing below the driver’s SatNav in the form of loan instalments.
My truck is now as ridiculous as it can possibly get. What more is there to life now?
When I finally arrived in Sweden and got hold of some cars to transport to Bergen in Norway (potentially filling the roads with more psychopaths), I realised that perhaps these motorists - much like the protagonist - are actually victims of contemporary society themselves. It was at this point the game evoked some very sombre feelings as I made my way along the motorway. Transporting these goods, I felt like an opium dealer bringing these faceless motorists their next fix, giving them the only thing that keeps their cogs turning in their equally empty and repetitive lives.
The initial fear that the villains of the game were to be taken away now become reality as I found myself empathising with these crazed lunatics. Where once we were engaged in a bitter class war, we now found solidarity in the fact we are victims of a rapacious economic system. Worse still, by expanding Pointless Freight and hiring other drivers, I was essentially condemning them to the same life of toil and misery which I was experiencing. Euro Truck Simulator was starting to feel less like a fun logistics simulator and more like Papers, Please or I Have No Mouth and I must Scream, putting the player into ridiculous ethical dilemmas.
Day 3
Arriving in Norway was anticlimactic, the tone had changed. I got rid of the Ennio Moricone and imported the Joy Division discography into my truck’s sound system. This was no longer an epic voyage into new frontiers full of adventure, but instead a bleak look into the emptiness of post-modernity. The new Scandinavian-themed paint jobs that came with the DLC had cost £40,000 a piece and I would now have to carry on working to pay the bank back.
I couldn’t soak in the landscapes and the rural Norwegian villages which the developers had so lovingly created. Instead, I was left working off debt and understanding why “Mortgage” means “death grip” in French. I would now visit all these lovely places, but only in the context of work and from the prison confines of my truck.
Not only this, but instead of being able to enjoy a brief moment of serenity between the usual work-sleep-work-sleep-work-consume cycle which has engulfed our lives, I was living this same cycle but within a game, with the added realism of traffic jams and road rage. This was like Inception.
It’s quite pretty I guess, but only being able to see it from the insides of this truck-shaped prison leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
With my anticlimactic adventure over, I can safely say that ETS2 is one of the greatest games of our generation. It’s achieved what few others out there have, and despite on the surface being a hugely popular simulator game with Linux support, it has furthered the credibility of video games as an art form.
Years from now when video games are being studied alongside literature and film in schools around the world (and we’re all using Linux and driving flying cars), Euro Truck Simulator 2 will be analysed and picked apart like this. Much like To Kill A Mockingbird or Great Expectations are studied at as works emblematic of the period they were created in, this game will be looked back on as a true product of the early 21st century.
So should you buy this expansion? Yes, it adds a lot of content in the form of new cities, vast landscapes and new cargo to transport so if you’re a fan of the game it gives you a good reason to revisit it. And besides, what meaning would there be to your life if you didn’t buy it?
You can find Euro Truck Simulator 2 - Scandinavia on Steam. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
To start with a few technical things, the patch consists of pretty standard bug fixes and general improvements like improved braking physics and more realistic sound effects for certain truck models. However, the game is still pretty poorly optimised and though it’s still extremely playable on a wide range of graphics cards, if you want 60fps with the very highest settings, you probably need a high-end graphics card.
The expansion adds a load of new cities in Scandinavia to deliver goods to and a load of goods to deliver, along with some new companies. Obviously this kind of DLC isn't there to re-invent the game or add many new features, but instead give existing fans a bit more space to roam in and a reason to pick up the game again and get some more hours out of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpybgwVnTp8
While loading up the game and looking forward to driving through the epic Norwegian fjords in my Volvo truck, appropriately listening to Ennio Moricone, I suddenly remembered that ETS2 is a game which makes you work for your enjoyment. To get to the much coveted fjords, I would have to drive my way up there, delivering dairy produce and tractor parts as I go. Obviously real life truckers can’t simply “quick travel” to locations, and if they could, they would very quickly find themselves out of employment.
Ennio Moricone would have to wait as I rather sluggishly made my way from Luxembourg - the headquarters of my company (Pointless Freight) - up through the low countries to Denmark, where I would cross over into Sweden using thebridge from that television series, then eventually Norway. Incidentally, Luxembourg was chosen for financial reasons: not because ETS2 simulates tax avoidance, but because apparently the country has the lowest fuel prices in Western Europe.
After planning my route up to Scandinavia and selecting what goods I would take to the first location, the first major flaw of the game manifested itself in the form of a giant dark grey area where Finland should be. Apparently, SCS Software does not seem to think that Finland is in Scandinavia, a fact which I’m sure will upset our editor Samsai. As history has taught us, one shouldn’t upset Finnish people.
After this initial disappointment, I remembered that ETS2 is an accurate simulator of real life haulage and logistics, and that real life is full of disappointments, which the game had already a good job of conveying. Like in real life, when faced with adversity, you move on and make lemonade from the lemons you just spent £13.59 on: ETS2 is also a provider of great life lessons. Unfortunately, Euro Truck Simulator has neither lemonade nor lemons in its list of goods, so I opted for 21 tonnes of chlorine instead.
One thing that I was quite fearful of when reading the patch notes was that they claimed to have improved the AI in the game. This would have been another major let down since it would have robbed us of the game’s principle villain: the motorist. Fortunately, it soon became apparent after a red hatchback cut me off and forced me to slam on the brakes - nearly causing a chemical spill in the Belgian countryside - that the AI still took its code from the HAL 9000 and GlaDOS and was as evil as ever, leaving the villains in place.
The motorists on ETS2 are the epitome of video game bad guys, as heartless as Sephiroth, as annoying as “Rival” from Pokemon Red & Blue and with the personality of the ghosts from Pac Man. But Rotterdam needed its chlorine and I wasn’t going to let some evil motorists get in the way, so I decided to drive the entire 350km in the middle of two lanes just to annoy them. The game is also far more fun if you imagine back stories for the villains. At one point, I made single, middle-aged, cat-loving tax auditor swerve into a tree.
That ought to put an end to their madness.
Day 2
Once in Rotterdam, I was tasked with transporting some canned pork to the Swedish city of Goteborg. It was at this point when I started recalling some of the excellent social commentary this game provides on our post-modern society. As I’m carrying this canned swine to Sweden, messages are constantly appearing in the bottom-right hand corner of the screen, reminding me that funds being deducted from my bank account in the form of loan instalments at a 17% interest rate. ETS2 was now going out of its way to remind me that if I did not keep on working, the imaginary family of my imaginary trucker would be sold into slavery by debt collectors.
If there is a game which could summarise contemporary society it is this one. To grow your trucking empire you have no choice but to take out numerous loans at extortionate prices, and in order to pay them back you have to keep working without pause, endlessly wandering through the post-industrial concrete and asphalt behemoths that carve up Europe’s once beautiful countryside, now tarnished in the name of industry and progress. All this so that those gluttonous motorists can consume their canned pork, though I rather wish it was the chlorine instead.
Wage slavery aside, and obviously recognising that this social commentary is not intentional (as far as I’m aware), it is rather tragic that our armless, bodiless protagonist does nothing other than work and sleep. All he (and the player) has to look forward to is some form of material attainment through acquiring garish depictions of half-naked viking women painted on the truck, or some very loud air horns to terrify the motorists.
Perhaps the most tragic aspect of this is achieving complete fulfilment. What happens when the truck is covered in lights and shiny wheels and the protagonist has consumed everything the game has to offer? There is but a void, nothing more to desire, no incentive to work and life thus loses its meaning. The bittersweet tragedy is that all those hours spent doing backbreaking work, doing nothing but driving and sleeping seem rather pointless since the rush of consuming those accessories lasted only a brief moment before the comedown arrived in the form of shackling debt - the constant reminders of which were appearing below the driver’s SatNav in the form of loan instalments.
My truck is now as ridiculous as it can possibly get. What more is there to life now?
When I finally arrived in Sweden and got hold of some cars to transport to Bergen in Norway (potentially filling the roads with more psychopaths), I realised that perhaps these motorists - much like the protagonist - are actually victims of contemporary society themselves. It was at this point the game evoked some very sombre feelings as I made my way along the motorway. Transporting these goods, I felt like an opium dealer bringing these faceless motorists their next fix, giving them the only thing that keeps their cogs turning in their equally empty and repetitive lives.
The initial fear that the villains of the game were to be taken away now become reality as I found myself empathising with these crazed lunatics. Where once we were engaged in a bitter class war, we now found solidarity in the fact we are victims of a rapacious economic system. Worse still, by expanding Pointless Freight and hiring other drivers, I was essentially condemning them to the same life of toil and misery which I was experiencing. Euro Truck Simulator was starting to feel less like a fun logistics simulator and more like Papers, Please or I Have No Mouth and I must Scream, putting the player into ridiculous ethical dilemmas.
Day 3
Arriving in Norway was anticlimactic, the tone had changed. I got rid of the Ennio Moricone and imported the Joy Division discography into my truck’s sound system. This was no longer an epic voyage into new frontiers full of adventure, but instead a bleak look into the emptiness of post-modernity. The new Scandinavian-themed paint jobs that came with the DLC had cost £40,000 a piece and I would now have to carry on working to pay the bank back.
I couldn’t soak in the landscapes and the rural Norwegian villages which the developers had so lovingly created. Instead, I was left working off debt and understanding why “Mortgage” means “death grip” in French. I would now visit all these lovely places, but only in the context of work and from the prison confines of my truck.
Not only this, but instead of being able to enjoy a brief moment of serenity between the usual work-sleep-work-sleep-work-consume cycle which has engulfed our lives, I was living this same cycle but within a game, with the added realism of traffic jams and road rage. This was like Inception.
It’s quite pretty I guess, but only being able to see it from the insides of this truck-shaped prison leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
With my anticlimactic adventure over, I can safely say that ETS2 is one of the greatest games of our generation. It’s achieved what few others out there have, and despite on the surface being a hugely popular simulator game with Linux support, it has furthered the credibility of video games as an art form.
Years from now when video games are being studied alongside literature and film in schools around the world (and we’re all using Linux and driving flying cars), Euro Truck Simulator 2 will be analysed and picked apart like this. Much like To Kill A Mockingbird or Great Expectations are studied at as works emblematic of the period they were created in, this game will be looked back on as a true product of the early 21st century.
So should you buy this expansion? Yes, it adds a lot of content in the form of new cities, vast landscapes and new cargo to transport so if you’re a fan of the game it gives you a good reason to revisit it. And besides, what meaning would there be to your life if you didn’t buy it?
You can find Euro Truck Simulator 2 - Scandinavia on Steam. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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There is another name though if you include Finland, Iceland & a few minor islands. In Sweden we call that "Norden", which I suppose you could translate into the The North, or something, if you insist.
Oh, and we love to tease the fins :P I kid!
I haven't played the game, but if you can, you'll be paying an arm and a leg rather than peanuts. ;)