Christmas is, of course, the time when Santa Claus comes to visit every lucky boy and girl. He does that in the form of a rosy-cheeked image, plastered across the side of a Coca Cola truck. Nothing says “goodwill to all” quite like an appropriated corporate mascot slapped on the flank of a vehicle delivering syrupy slugs of overpriced brown fizz to the masses.

There’s one truck that almost certainly won’t> be driving home for Christmas though. American Truck Simulator [official site]. And that makes this the worst festive season since the time a ghost told me that nobody liked me and that an undertaker would steal the pants from my corpse.

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Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>

Euro Truck Simulator 2 [official site] is one of my favourite games of the last few years. I think we’ve surpassed the point where I have to ensure that everyone understands that I’m not joking. I hope that people have started to realise that Euro Trucking is as valid and enjoyable a gaming habit as murdering, looting and doing a sport.

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I’m always fascinated how people customise things, from pencil cases to player characters – and trucks, of course. Euro Truck Simulator 2 [official site] lets folks fancy up their rigs with fancy paint jobs, but now with new DLC opens a wonderful new space to blow cash on trinkets to make you happy, adding cabin accessories.

Nodding dogs, pennants, hula dancers, laptops, handbags, ice boxes, and fluffy dice are among the treasures truckers can now fill their cabins with, and yeah, I am keen to see the scenes people create. Have a look at all this junk:

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I’ve been on holiday, which means I’ve spent more energy walking around and looking at things>, than I do when I’m at work. It’s a tricky thing, this holiday business. How am I supposed to enjoy the majesty of nature (and the cold pint in a country pub that waits at the end of nature) when my muscles are aching, the sweat is like an oil slick on my brow, and I’ve fallen into the habit of checking my maps every fifteen minutes because I’m convinced I’m walking in the wrong direction.

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Q: What is green and scaly, weighs 20 tonnes, has a fearsome roar audible a mile away, moves at up to 70km/h, and can haul a load of wood shavings from Felixstowe to Kiel in 14 hours?

A: A truck with a sweet prehistoric paintjob.

A pack of six really very swish dinoskins are now roaring around in Euro Truck Simulator 2 [official site] as a 1.59 DLC pack, which is both cheaper and more fun than Jurassic World>. “NICE” I shouted in the RPS treehouse when I saw them. On top of that, developers SCS recently dropped a respectable update adding a mod manager and more.

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The worst music. The worst>. And yet, at the same time, the Beach Boys-as-muzak soundtrack to this new American Truck Simulator [official site] footage entirely fits the faintly awkward cheesiness of the sterling lorry driver series. I sort of love it.

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What are the best Steam Summer Sale deals? Each day for the duration of the sale, we’ll be offering our picks – based on price, what we like, and what we think more people should play. Read on for the five best deals from day 7 of the sale.>

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Ready to discover once-and-for-all whether X-Plane is better than FSX? Whether Falcon 4.0 is better than Milk Float Simulator 2012? Ready to read the word ‘realism’ 46 times in a single hour, and spit feathers on discovering that the sim that caused got you through your divorce has been cruelly cold-shouldered by an idiot with a bus fetish and a sci-fi blindspot the size of the Crab Nebula? You are? Splendid. You’re in the right place.

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We are just one day away from the release of the Scandinavia expansion for Euro Truck Simulator 2 [official site], and Alec’s review is already in progress. I imagine that even as I’m typing these words he’s navigating fjords, shipping Moomins, solving grim transnational murders, and explaining to onlookers that, though included in this DLC and part of the cultural region, Denmark is not strictly speaking a part of the Scandinavian peninsula.

Me? I’ve got to settle for this all-too exciting launch trailer.

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Euro Truck Simulator 2 [official site] has long captivated Adam and I with its surprising mixture of relaxing night drives and compulsive business management mechanics, but the area it most needs improvement is in its scenery. I play it in order to slip into a trance of cornering and lane transitions, but I’d be pulled from my roadriding reverie less often if the view beyond my windshield didn’t remain so similar regardless of whether I was in Plymouth or Poland.

SCS Software promise that approaching DLC expansion Scandinavia will satisfy my hunger for greater diversity in my scenery and service stations, stating in a blog post that they’ve thrown more artists at the peninsula than anything they’ve released previously, including ETS2 itself. Check if they’re right with the teaser trailer and screenshots below.

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