I, uh, I don’t want to get in trouble here again. I’ve written up a simulator game or two here and accidentally let slip my mask of positivity to reveal that I just do not get the appeal. I’m willing to learn, folks. I’m willing to try. But it is a huge business and there are so many fans, I can accept that I’m wrong. Which is why today’s interview with the team behind American Truck Simulator and Euro Truck Simulator 2, as performed by our very own Adam Smith, is a video worth watching. Even I have found some reasons to take this for a test drive.

No, really. Adam convinced me. And you’re in danger of being convinced too.

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So far, American Truck Simulator has encouraged safe and legal driving. Don’t speed, don’t crash, don’t run red lights, don’t drive through protected forests. But I have longed for the game to be a little flexible with rules of the road in the name of a pleasant drive and my dream is coming true. The next update will add a new road venturing into a place where commercial trucking is forbidden, driving through a national park just because. The new route goes through Yosemite National Park along the winding Tioga Pass, and it looks lovely. (more…)

Our Adam once told a story in the RPS treehouse about meeting with folks from Truck Simulator developers SCS Software, who were surprised and somewhat confused by how much we’re into their virtuatrucks in totally non-ironic ways as chillout games. We really are. (Well, when we’re not modding horns into alien wails.) You’ll get to see this encounter happen again live on stage in April at EGX Rezzed, the London games show run by our corporate siblings, as Adam will host an interview with two SCS fellas. (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…)

Ah, the American North, where the trees are tall, the roads are winding, and everyone feels just that little bit more relaxed, being closer to Canada’s soothing influence. It’s just a scientific fact; look it up.

After teasing it for a time, SCS Software have announced the next expansion for American Truck Simulator, latest in their freight-driving sim series. This time, you’re headed to the Beaver state, up to Oregon, in search of the fortune that the logging industry of such a green and lustrous land might bring.

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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…)

Post-processing tools for games aren’t new – hello Reshade and SweetFX – but the world of dramatically altering a PC game’s appearance with what could loosely be described as real-time Instragram filters has always been a scrappy wild west. Nvidia have this week built themselves a governor’s mansion on this new frontier, introducing a feature called ‘Freestyle‘ to the GeForce Experience suite of game optimisation, streaming and screenshotting tools. It might lack the open source and community-driven scope of ReShade, but it’s easier and slicker to use on the games that support it – and the results can be dramatic. Gimmicky, sure, but making a game you’re otherwise tiring of into a neon fever-dream can be a real shot in the arm.

Presenting for your wide-eyed delectation and howling disapproval – Plunkbat: The Animated Series, Assassin’s Creed Oranges: Vice City and American Truck Simulator: Grindhouse Edition. (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…)

As we lay 2017 to rest, let us remember all of the wonderful games that flickered across our screens and occupied our hearts and minds. But now we must promise never to think of them again because times have changed. This is 2018 and if we’ve learned one thing from the few hours we’ve spent in it it’s that there are games everywhere>. Every firework that exploded in the many midnights of New Year’s celebrations was stuffed with games and they were still raining down across the world this morning. We cannot stop them, we cannot contain them, but we can> attempt to understand them.

Hundreds of them will be worth our time and attention, but we’ve selected a few of the ones that excite us most as we prepare for another year of splendid PC gaming. There’s something for everyone, from Aunt Maude, the military genius, to merry Ian Rogue, the man who hates permadeath and procedural generation with a passion.

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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…)