The Video Game That Changed My Life | A Review Of Euro Truck Simulator 2
Hi it’s Zach and in this video I’m gonna
be talking about Euro Truck Simulator 2 or
ETS2 for short.
I’ve played it for a nudge over 1,000 hours
in total and honestly it came out so long
ago now and is already so well known and loved
that a review seems almost unnecessary in
2021, but I’m doing it anyway because it’s
fun, it was requested and maybe there’s
someone out there who’s thinking about taking
their first steps into the world of trucking.
Get ready for a more open and personal approach
than you’d normally expect from a game review
because me and this game go waaaaay back,
so sit back, buckle up and enjoy the ride.
Now as crazy as this might sound, Euro Truck
Simulator 2 is one of 2 games that have had
a big impact on my life and possibly even
changed who I am as a person.
The other game is World of Warcraft if you’re
wondering but that’s a story for another
day.
Back when ETS2 came out back in 2012 I was
in my early 20’s living with my girlfriend
who I now call my wife and at this point we’d
lived together in Sweden for about 2 years
That’s where the name RedcoatViking originates
by the way – Redcoat as in a British soldier
in the 1700’s because I’m originally from
England and loved the movie the Patriot, and
Viking because I’m now a crazy Swede.
Anyway I didn’t have a job, my Swedish sucked
and I was starting to develop issues with
my mental health which often made going out
a really stressful experience.
Neither me or my wife even had a drivers license
since we were both teenagers at the time so
we couldn’t really go anywhere which made
life especially difficult since we lived out
in the sticks so Euro Truck Sim’s offer
of letting me drive around most of Europe
completely freely was very enticing.
I’d already played previous games in the
series like 18 Wheels of Steel and the first
Euro Truck Simulator for a few hours here
and there but it wasn’t until ETS2 came
out that I really started to develop an interest
in driving.
The ETS2 base game gives you a map that includes
a lot of mainland Europe and the UK, and after
a very brief tutorial it just sets you free
to start your own logistics business by buying
trucks, hiring drivers and driving trucks
from point A to point B, with cash bonuses
awarded for a job well done, such as arriving
on time with no damage to the trailer.
It does such an amazing job at giving you
the sensation of being out on the open road,
exploring the world as you ferry cargo from
one country to another, and I think it provided
a sense of freedom and accomplishment that
I felt like I lacked in real life at the time.
You can hire drivers and operate multiple
trucks to bring in more money as you continue
to grow your logistics empire.
When the very much still alive multiplayer
mod dropped in 2016, now known as TruckersMP,
it allowed thousands of players from around
the world to connect while driving around
on a shared map of Europe for the first time
in history.
There’s no AI traffic in the mod due to
technical limitations that are still present
today, but just knowing I was driving on roads
among real people made it all seem so much
more real, and after using PS4 gamepad for
years, I finally decided it was time to invest
in a cheap steering wheel and pedals.
The wheel itself was a piece of plastic in
the shape of a wheel called the Speedlink
Drift O.Z, but any wheel is an improvement
over a gamepad and little did I know it wasn’t
just the evolution of a hobby, but the beginning
of when my life started to change for the
better.
I made a lot of friends driving online and
I’m still in contact with a lot of them
today.
For someone like me who’d retreated deep
into my turtle shell I really appreciated
the social aspect of being a in an online
company where we had to log each of our completed
jobs.
We spent countless nights meeting up at our
company headquarters in Berlin and heading
out on long convoys across Europe, enjoying
the scenery and having a laugh on Teamspeak,
all the while trying to avoid some of the
obviously intoxicated truckers driving 150kph
through winding country roads.
It’s not perfect, but it’s still a hell
of a lot of fun.
After a while I upgraded my little plastic
wheel to a Logitech G27 which, and say what
you want about Logitech stuff, it was a huge
improvement over the wheel I had before.
Suddenly I was using a H-Pattern shifter and
manual 12 speed gearboxes and feeling the
roar of the engine through the force feedback
in my wheel as my little Renault Premium struggled
to pull a 50 ton load up a steep hill while
getting flashed by drivers in 700 hp Volvo’s
and Scanias behind who probably thought I
was going slow on purpose, not realising my
foot was pressed to the floor and my truck
just sucked.
By 2018 and I’d gotten myself a class C
drivers license and was working on getting
my CE qualification to be able to drive doubles
in Sweden, trying in vain to convince my driving
instructor who was guiding me on the yard
that I learned how to reverse doubles in Euro
Truck Simulator 2 but he didn’t believe
me, he was convinced I’d learned it working
on a farm as a teen or something.
Fast forward to today I’m an experienced
truck driver with a few years behind the wheel
driving everything from 18 ton bread and ice
cream distribution lorries to 64 ton doubles
carrying timber and, although I lost my job
due to the effects of the corona pandemic
at the end of 2020 and am now working on changing
careers to work in IT in a nice warm office
hopefully next to a coffee machine, I learned
a lot about myself, met a ton of really nice
people and gained the confidence I needed
to get to where I am today mentally.
Anyway I’m told this is supposed to be a
game review so I better get on with talking
about the game itself in case you’re still
watching and haven’t gotten bored and started
watching Squirrel instead!
As I mentioned earlier, the base game includes
the UK and central to north western Europe
about where Eastern Germany meets Western
Poland, and there’s loads of official expansions
made with exceptional detail that expand the
map to include all of France, Italy, Poland,
Scandinavia and Spain with more still being
developed today thanks to SCS Software’s
relentless long term support of the game.
Then there’s the trucks, all of them use
officially licensed branding including Volvo,
Scania, Renault, MAN, DAF and Iveco, and the
modding community is up there with the best
of them.
Almost anything you could think of wanting
in your game is available on one of the many
mod sites which you can find with a quick
google search.
It also has Steam Workshop support which allows
you to download mods directly through Steam,
but make sure to read the instructions on
the mod itself as some mods require you to
set up additional services for them to work
properly.
Some of the mods I’d recommend are Jazzycat’s
traffic packs which massively increase the
variety of AI traffic in the world, and ProMods
which redesigns a lot of major cities in incredible
detail, aswell as expanding the map with new
towns and even entire countries like Iceland.
While recording all the footage for this review
I was pleasantly surprised by the much improvement
engine sounds from inside the cabin, aswell
as upgraded rain effects where the water droplets
glide along the windshield until the wipers
do their thing.
Graphically it doesn’t look like it came
out in 2012 thanks to continued support and
development from SCS Software but something
that seems to be a running theme with simulator
games, the anti-aliasing is abit weak and
there’s no shortage of jagged edges on things
like overhead cables and railings, but you
can improve it a lot by increasing the render
quality to 150 or even 200%.
There’s plenty of AI traffic out on the
roads and honestly their driving ability and
problem solving seem to have improved a lot
since I last played it a couple of years ago
and the addition of random incidents and diversions
on the road is fantastic and adds a lot of
realism to the game.
There’s a good variety of cargo to haul
too including curtain and refrigerated trailers
with tons of different liveries, flatbeds
carrying wheel loaders or other construction
equipment, a yacht, a car transporter and
quite a loads more.
You’ll find a good amount of variety when
it comes to trailers and skins even just in
the base game.
Controller wise it works well with everything
from a keyboard and gamepad up to top of the
line steering wheels, though I haven’t tried
it with a direct drive wheel because I don’t
own one, but on a quick side note I will be
getting hold of a new Fanatec CSL DD set when
they come out later this year and might make
it my first unboxing video on the channel.
TrackIR5 is really useful for looking left
and right at junctions but it’s not necessary
so if you don’t have a head tracker you
can just bind a key or button to look left
and right instead.
It supports VR too but for that to work you
need to launch the VR beta version through
Steam and I’m not sure if it’s compatible
with the multiplayer mod and unfortunately
didn’t get a chance to test it.
Overall ETS2 is just excellent and you don’t
need to be some sort of truck spotting enthusiast
to think so.
It’s easily one of my favorite games of
all time and I expect many people feel the
same.
It looks great for such an old game, easily
on par with modern simulator games, and the
driving model feels accurate and true to the
sensation of driving a real truck, minus the
g-force and air cushioned seat movement.
Though if you sit on a friends back while
driving and ask them to bob around you’d
probably be able to simulator the seat movement
quite easily.
It’s just really relaxing driving along
motorways and country roads in a huge and
beautifully modeled representation of Europe
complete with real landmarks and nation specific
road markings where a single delivery can
take upwards of 2 hours and, as both a certified
truck driver and a long term fan of the game,
I absolutely 100% recommend giving it a try
if you haven’t already.
Now at the risk of making this video even
more cheesy than it already is, I just want
to this opportunity to say thank you to everyone
at SCS software for your continued support
of a game enjoyed by so many people around
the world and for helping me come out of my
little shell all those years ago.
9 years after release and you’re still support
the game like it was brand new, something
other studios could take inspiration from!
Atleast in my mind, I owe a lot of my personal
growth to the people I met and the experiences
I’ve had in Euro Truck Simulator 2 over
the years, and for that I’m super grateful.
I still have occasional off days where I’m
convinced that I’m a failure and everything
is hopeless and terrible, but now I know to
just buckle up and ride out the storm, or
‘hålla I hatten’ as they say in Sweden,
because better times are just around the corner.
And this concludes my slightly weird review
of ETS2!
If you enjoyed it then check out some of my
other videos and subscribe to the channel
if you’re interested in getting our take
on some of the other games you might have
lurking in your wishlist.
If you got this far in the video then you’re
an absolute legend.
I hope you have an awesome day, stay wholesome
and don’t forget to save!
