Euro Truck Simulator 2 developers SCS Software today announced a new expansion for their cheery truck ’em up, tentatively named Beyond The Baltic Sea. It will add new land to pootle around the Baltic sea, with the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, along with a chunk of Russia through to Saint Petersburg and a sliver of southern Finland. The expansion is still a way away but that just gives plenty of time to plan your honking holiday. (more…)

I’ve been playing the newly released Fishing: Barents Sea in the hope that it was water-bound cousin to American/Euro Truck Simulator, those bastions of road-tripping relaxation. What I found was something very different. Something remarkable in its own way.

Chilly Norwegian seas, the lonely put-put of a solo fishing boat engine, the methodical laying and collecting of lines – and a sublimely-synthy, ever-so-Vangelis soundtrack as I coolly slice open fish bellies. (more…)

My nerves have been sufficiently jangled and my trigger-finger sufficiently itched by the glut of action games which landed in the closing months of last year. I crave an altogether more sedate beginning to 2018, and so my mind turns to games in which violence, reflex or any other kind of unblinking attentiveness takes a back seat.

Primarily we’re talking violence-free games here, but I wanted to drill a little deeper than that – so nothing that generally requires a competitive streak. I’m chasing a certain feel rather than a certain category. Flying, walking, puzzling, driving, building, dreaming, climbing, stretching, swinging (not like that), swimming, wondering: these are just a few of the ways in which flashing pixels can make you feel a very different sort of accomplishment.

And, of course, these are not even slightly the be-all and end-all of non-violent games on PC – please do nominate more in comments below. (more…)

I want you to do three things before you watch the below. First, I want you to reassure anyone else in your household or workplace that they are perfectly safe, no matter what they might hear. Then I want you to turn your volume up very loud indeed. Finally, I want you to imagine yourself not as the driver of the truck you will see, but as the driver of the small, cream-coloured car in front of it.

A lonely freeway, late at night. No sound but the thrum of your engine. And then. (more…)

Another year over, a new one just begun, which means, impossibly, even more games.> But what about last year? Which were the games that most people were buying and, more importantly, playing? As is now something of a tradition, Valve have let slip a big ol’ breakdown of the most successful titles released on Steam over the past twelve months.

Below is the full, hundred-strong roster, complete with links to our coverage if you want to find out more about any of the games, or simply to marvel at how much seemed to happen in the space of 52 short weeks.

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How can Father Christmas deliver presents to all the children of the world in only one night? Magic. However, Sinterklaas has been caning the peppermint schnapps and wouldn’t say no to a bit of help from truckers. American Truck Simulator and Euro Truck Simulator 2 have launched festive events challenging virtuatruckers to haul gifts across Europe and Americky. That’s a great act of kindness, and Father Christmas of course loves that stuff, so in return the games offer honking helpers gifts such as truck paint jobs and cabin decorations including a real uncle-lookin’ snowman. (more…)

I’ve spent a lot more with American Truck Simulator than I have with its by-now much larger predecessor Euro Truck Simulator 2, mostly because a more distant land seemed more romantic than one I am already part of. But ATS, in its current South-Westerly configuration, is a game with a heavy reliance on rock and sand landscapes – evocative for sure, but while we await a hoped-for move to greener states such as Oregon, ETS2 is there to fill the verdant gap. This Mediterranean allure of this week’s massively-expanded Italy DLC proved especially irresistible.

Three things: 1) it’s remarkable how different ETS2 feels from ATS, despite broadly being the same game 2) Italia is the prettiest Truck Sim module yet 3) even so, the Truck Sim games now badly need a big visual overhaul. (more…)

Europe s lovely leg has been given a makeover in Euro Truck Simulator 2. Italy has been expanded and fleshed out in the new Italia expansion (and a bit in the base game), so if you ve ever dreamed of spending your days transporting grapes and marbles up and down winding roads, you ve got no more excuses for putting it off. It s out now.

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While my trucking dreams took me to the big skies of American Truck Simulator, some still follow roads closer to home. Euro Truck Simulator 2 will revisit Italy in its next paid add-on, expanding and revamping the country. That will launch next Tuesday, the 5th of December, developers SS Software announced today. Perhaps, as our country tries to hack itself off Europe (accidentally severing several fingers with a Stanley knife and pulping its toes with a fumbled hammer in the process), Europe will seem fancier and I’ll soon find myself dreaming of these lands. For now, have a look at Italia in this trailer:

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Another corner of Europe is getting expanded and fancied up later this year, with the next Euro Truck Simulator 2 [official site] DLC off to Italy. Like the recent French expansion, Italia will expand and update the country with new cities and more unique features. The handful of Italian cities already in the game will be updated to match for free for everyone too. (more…)