I’ve been robbed! I got up this morning to find my office ransacked and my mahogany word cabinet agape. Among the items taken were the words listed above. In the circumstances, covering this week’s wargame releases could be tricky. Perhaps I should stick to sim-related news, interviews and observations today.

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I want to play a game about tourism. It’s odd that I can fight in so many wars, across so many continents, planets and timeframes, but I can’t simply take a stroll around a city orf national park, taking photos and writing postcards as I go. I’m sure there are games about tourism but they’re probably adventure games, or hidden object games. Something will be in the way of the pleasure of being in a place simply to be in that place. From Street View to The Crew, I’m looking for my next grand tour.>

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I imagined Piazza San Marco and the Grand Canal when I heard Euro Truck Simulator 2 would add Venice in the next patch. Perhaps you’d drop film cannisters off at the Venice Film Festival, or communion wafers at St Mark’s Basilica. ETS 2 and I romanticise different things. Its Venice is a city built around docks and industrial estates. It’s a city for people to work in, not for tourists to visit. Roads, not canals. As someone not into Simulating, I’m charmed by this practical view.

If you’d like to drive past Venetian warehouses and breathe in Venetian fumes, you can have a peek as SCS Software have released an open beta build of patch 1.11.

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When Euro Truck Simulator 2 worked its way into my dreams, I hoped that it might be the first in a convoy of vehicular profession simulators. Sadly, OMSI aside, the so-called simulators that I’ve tried since have mostly mirrored John’s experiences with Woodcutter Simulator 2013. I love the idea of performing tasks that don’t involve guns death and destruction while journeying through a recreation of the real world, or something like it. The beauty of Euro Truck Simulator has little to do with the transportation of goods or business management – it’s a game about driving and watching the world go by. That’s why images of follow-up American Truck Simulator are as exciting as any stills I’ve seen this year. They’re below.

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Adam and I are both avowed truck lovers, but thanks to the Euro Truck Simulator 2 Multiplayer Mod we can now pull our big rigs into the same roadside service station for a late night liaison. The mod has been in-development since late last year and entered open alpha yesterday.

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I tried not to post this, but I can’t help myself. Even as I get my paws on one multiplayer retrofit with Just Cause 2′s multiplayer mod, another appears on the horizon. I’m going to be stalking the Euro Truck Simulator 2 multiplayer mod until it gets released. Come and watch the development video below for some hot convoy action. (more…)

I like Euro Truck Simulator 2 more with each passing day. Last time, it was because the game now has Oculus Rift support. This time, it’s because developers SCS Software have re-invested the profits from some recent DLC back into the game. By recording cars smashing into one another from great heights.

Check out the video of this week’s sound recording session below. (more…)

I’ve used the Oculus Rift to fight Half-Life 2′s Combine, to blast through space in EVR, and to stomp around in Hawken’s powerful mechs, but this was the thing I’d really been waiting for. SCS Software just released the Oculus Rift-enabled beta for Euro Truck Simulator 2, and I celebrated by driving from Cardiff to Southampton. (more…)

The Flare Path turns two this week. Here in the UK that means it can legally hunt gruffalo, attend public hangings, and teach John Prine lyrics to mynah birds. To mark the occasion there’ll be no news items or inscrutable intros today. The entire column will consist of quizzes. Napping fitfully beyond the break are five fuzzy-eared Foxers, each with a rather special set of prizes tied to its brush. (more…)

Site policy: we don’t run news about competitions in other places.

Today, I must break site policy. Because today there is a videogames competition that has nothing to do with us, but wherein the prize is to become a fully qualified HGV driver.

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