Euro truck simulator is a truck driving simulator in which you play as a truck driver. Despite the fact that this game is old, many people will perceive it to be obsolete. However I feel that this game still should receive a review.
For a truck simulation game this game has little in the limelight of options. This is detrimental for many reasons. The option at the start of the game are to decide what country you will be starting in is a good idea. When you pick a country it will automatically put you in the capital city. I tried to start in the UK. The game didn’t provide me with the option of the cities on offer it just placed me in London. From there I started to have little faith in the game.
Choosing a truck is also lacklustre experience. When you choose a truck the game will show you a short cutscene of the trucks on offer in the showroom. I also noticed that all the truck shops offer the same vehicles so there is deviation between all the truck shops. But the trucks on offer you cannot customise them at all under any context. Whether that is the colour of the truck, parts of the vehicle itself or what your interior looks like. This is detrimental as there should be an option to customise vehicles.
Picking jobs in this game is also mundane and provides limited choice. The game will make you go on jobs, but you can only drive to and from specific areas. This is restrictive as you can only drive within your current country, unless you are in a country that allows you to go to a neighbouring country. I think that the game should have let you drive to/from any country you wanted. Considering you are playing this game to drive around Europe you would expect to the option to drive long distances. But this game doesn’t provide such options. You are also only paid in Euros which is somewhat inaccurate as some countries in the game don’t use such currency such as the United Kingdom (even before Brexit.). There is also no option to change this either.
Geographically this game is set in Europe; however this game doesn’t provide a full experience of Europe in its entirety. Namely because some countries are missing such as the Republic Of Ireland/northern Ireland, in many countries there is little places to travel too. The United Kingdom is a fantastic example of this as you only have Manchester, Newcastle and London as locations to drive in. So you have only 3 cities in England, with no locations in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Also most cities in the game are very similar with no differentiations. I was driving around 2 cities (Prague and Rome) I felt that between the 2 cities there was little differences. The environments and assets of the cities are too similar, when they should be at least some differences between them. For example, the differences in the architectural designs found in the various cities, or even the volume of traffic and vehicles found in each area. The roads and motorways are also too similar and are unappealing to look at. I felt bored driving after so long as there were no new sights or reward for driving and it became a chore.
Whilst the game does work well and is relatively bug free, however on technical level this game is basic. For starters the AI for the vehicles is incredibly basic and they follow a routine. The vehicles will remain immobile whenever the routine is disrupted in any way. For example to test the AI I driven around like it was bumper cars and moved a car to the pavement. When I moved the car was still staying there without driving back onto the road.
This game does feature a traffic law system, but this has no effect on you. If you drive badly in this game it will pop up with fines for driving the wrong ways etc. But you won’t actually get fined at all. Also if you damage your/other vehicles it won’t show you any damage etc but your truck does have a ‘life bar’ of how much damage you can take.
Generally I recommend avoiding Euro Truck Simulator for many of the reasons as stated above. However I feel that this game in a way is good for some people. I would recommend this to anyone with a basic computer. As well as anyone who wants a cheap game to play and see if they like truck driving games. Inevitably I would recommend getting if any of the previous statements apply to you.
