Don't let the reindeers and sleigh fool you: Santa is essentially a glorified trucker. As such, it makes sense that virtual truckers get in on his action. A new Christmassy update has landed for Euro Truck Simulator 2, and with it, a new challenge for would-be gift deliverers.

Top of the billing is the Christmas event. Truckists can now accept a cargo of "Christmas Gifts" to be ferried around the game's truncated Europe. If a player can, over the course of the event, deliver gifts across the distance from SCS's office to the North Pole, they'll be rewarded with a unique paint skin.

Also with the update: new fixes and features, including showroom improvements, driving tweaks and, most importantly of all, new sounds for Scania 6 cylinder engines. Game changer. You can see the full patch notes here.

Update aside, I'm writing this more to remind people that Euro Truck Simulator 2 exists and is still surprisingly brilliant. In a year of comedy simulators, it's nice to remember that serious sims can still be a lot of fun.

Outside of Europe, SCS are making progress with the upcoming American Truck Simulator. You can see some of the latest screenshots over at the ETS2 Steam page.

Unironic truck driving game Euro Truck Simulator 2 now has three new European cities to drive to and away from. Venice, Graz and Klagenfurt are now feasible destinations thanks to update 1.11, which also introduces a range of other new features and fixes. For example: you can now adjust your seat. It s possible to adjust your seat in real world trucks, so it s about time this was reflected in Euro Truck Simulator 2.
There s more of course. Car AI code has been tweaked extensively, there are new cruise control features, the radio player now has sorting and filtering options, while the user-interface has been given a significant overhaul. Here s a list of the major changes, with the full changelog available on the Euro Truck Simulator 2 website. The update is available right now.



3 new cities: Venice, Graz, and Klagenfurt with a lot of new kilometers to explore


Seat Adjustment feature


Several months of tweaks of car AI code


Re-designed radio player for with additional sorting and filtering options


New Cruise control features


Displaying current road speed limit in Route Advisor (disable, or switch car or truck speciefic limits in options)


Complete UI facelift


Support for sway bar simulation


Refined the truck suspension for more control over truck and trailer stability


Recalculated the center of gravity of each cargo (more individual behavior of the whole rig)


Controls to adjust trailer stability in options


Improve collisions of player's truck and AI vehicles


Re-created all scratch and crash sounds in the game


Equalized the sound volume of in-cabin engine sounds and external engine sounds for all trucks


More realistic timing for the air brake sound


Retarder indicator is lit during automatic retarder usage


Ability to sell a garage


Ability to relocate your headquarters to another city

A big update to Euro Truck Simulator 2 is adding three new cities to its lineup of places you can keep on truckin' through, as well as truck-specific speed limits to the GPS route adviser and the hotly anticipated "Seat Adjustement" feature. But perhaps even more interesting than any of that is that Tomas Duda, one of the developers on the game, was banned from Steam for a year for using a "Daily Deal" announcement to bring a potentially serious security vulnerability to Valve's attention.

If you hit yesterday's announcement that Euro Truck Simulator 2 was the Steam Daily Deal, you might have found yourself redirected to an unexpected place: the Harlem Shake video. The idea, according to Duda, was to force Valve to take notice of the security flaw in community announcements, and then fix it, but what happened instead was a one-year ban "for violations of the Steam Subscriber Agreement."

Duda said he went with the ill-advised Harlem Shake redirect after talks about the vulnerability with "a Valve guy (a) few months ago" went nowhere. "I was talking about the script tag vulnerability multiple times. No one fixed it. Now I did Harlem Shake for fun (yay for #steamdb)," he wrote. "Imagine if someone used the vulnerability to steal users' session IDs? Redirected to a phishing site?"

He also claimed that he didn't want to make the vulnerability public, but said it's hard to avoid widespread attention when you post something funny. "People then just share it and it spreads," he wrote. "Had like ~100 people at the time on the announcement page a few minutes after doing that."

Duda and his supporters are working on an open letter to Valve appealing the ban, and an "Unban Timmy" user group (in reference to his Steam ID) has also popped up. You can also keep track of his status at istimmystillbanned.info, which for now remains at an unhappy "Yes."

One of two things are usually the case if a game has "Simulator" in its title. Either it's an overly earnest attempt to provide accurate simulation, or it's a joke. Euro Truck Simulator 2 is something of a rarity. It's the former, sure, but avoids the usual trap of being buggy, obtuse and transparent in its limitations. It's good. You're probably sick of people saying its good, but by all logic it shouldn't be, so it bears repeating.

Only one thing could make it better, and that's the inclusion of friends. Strong is the draw of a convoy, especially when filled with folks hauling concrete across Belgium. That dream is increasingly approaching reality. Today, the ETS2 Multiplayer mod launches into open alpha.

It's definitely an alpha. Having attempted to connect a few times this morning, its server has either been full or down. Still, if you have the patience to persist, you can download the installer from the mod's alpha page. At least, you can if it's working it too has had more than a few wobbles since the mod's launch.

Naturally, this is just an early implementation of what will hopefully become a more robust creation. The life of a Euro Truck Simulator 2 driver is a lonely one, and the chance to populate its roads with other players will now doubt liven up an admittedly sedate experience.

Every Tuesday Andy straps on the Oculus Rift and dives headfirst into the world of virtual reality. Is it really the future of PC gaming? Let s find out.

When I first heard about how amazing Oculus Rift was, I was unconvinced. I m naturally wary of any technology heralded as THE FUTURE, because I know that, in most cases, we ll look back at ourselves and laugh at how excited we got about such rubbish technology. But then I stuck my head in one and was instantly converted. Now I ve become a tedious VR evangelist, bending the ear of anyone who ll listen about how incredible it is, and forcing people to sit at my desk and try it for themselves. So to give the guys in the office peace, I ve decided to start this new weekly report on all things VR, both for people curious about the tech, and those of you who already own a Rift.

Driving from Stuttgart to Aberdeen in Euro Truck Simulator 2



The unironically brilliant Euro Truck Simulator 2 recently added experimental Oculus Rift support. While the idea of using VR to simulate slowly driving down the M4 might seem like a gross misuse of the technology, it s actually one of the best Rift games I ve played. Those lovingly modelled cabins give your surroundings a real sense of depth and space. It s so detailed that when it rains, you see the droplets streak along the glass as you build up speed. With a good force feedback wheel (I used a Thrustmaster Ferrari F430), the rumble of your tyres on the tarmac and steering resistance only add to the hypnotic realism. If you turn and look out of the driver s window, the camera flips back to show you the rear end of the truck. This gives you a realistic feeling of leaning out of the window.

I decide to stress test the simulation by driving non-stop from Stuttgart to Aberdeen. After about 30 minutes of driving, my brain is convinced I m sitting in a truck on a German motorway, and not on a squeaky chair in an office in Bath. The cabin feels weirdly real, and there s something quite relaxing about cruising along with the wheel rumbling softly in my hands. At one point I was so convinced by the 3D cabin, I tried to lean my arm on the door. The door that doesn t exist. But then I start getting hot. The insulating foam around the Rift s eyepiece, the fluffy velour earpads of my Beyerdynamic headphones, and our stiflingly warm office force me to pull the headset off. I m sweating buckets. So I barely made it out of Germany, but while it lasted it was a great example of how virtual reality can give simulators an extra layer of immersion. Just make sure you ve got a desk fan to hand.

Buy Euro Truck Simulator
To enable Oculus Rift mode, right click on the game in your Steam library, go to the betas tab, opt into the oculus experimental branch, then add -oculus to your launch options.

Watching Star Wars in a virtual cinema



VR Cinema is a virtual movie theatre that allows you to watch video files imported from your PC on a remarkably convincing cinema screen. I watched a 1080p Blu-ray rip of the first Star Wars film, and it s one of the most impressive Rift experiences I ve had so far. You can wander around the theatre freely, or use a hologram-like interface to jump between seats. The screen feels genuinely massive, especially when you walk towards it and look up. Cleverly, the lighting around you reacts dynamically to what s happening in the film. If a scene is dark the theatre will be plunged into blackness, but if there s a brighter moment, like an explosion, it ll light up with the same colour as the image on the screen. You can even see a projector on the back wall if you look behind you. It s like having your own personal 500-inch TV, and you don t have to worry about idiots talking through the film.

This is the kind of thing that ll give Oculus Rift mainstream appeal beyond games. The idea of watching old or obscure films on the big screen that you d otherwise never get the chance to is a powerful one, especially for cinephiles. Even with our development kit, which is a much lower resolution than the commercial Rift will be, it works incredibly well. I tried a few other films Blade Runner, Children of Men, The Shining and noticed that after 30-40 minutes of watching them, when I was sufficiently lost in the story, I completely forgot that I was looking at a virtual screen. It was like I d fooled my brain into thinking I was actually at the cinema, which is a very strange feeling. The only problem is comfort. I have a hard time sitting through a film with 3D glasses on, never mind a plastic box strapped to my head. But get over that and this is one of the Rift s most tantalising showcases.

Download VR Cinema
VR Cinema supports .avi, .mp4, .mkv, and .wmv files. If you import a video and see a blank screen, download the Combined Community Codec Pack.

Reliving virtual memories



One of the most surprising effects of using the Rift for extended periods of time is having distinct, three-dimensional memories of places that don t exist. When I think of that movie theatre from VR Cinema, I don t think of it as somewhere I viewed passively on a screen: I remember it as a place. I recall its dimensions and its lighting. There s something unnatural about remembering things that didn t happen so vividly and tangibly, which makes me think of how replicants in Ridley Scott s tech-noir masterpiece Blade Runner were implanted with fake memories to make them believe they re human. Rift does things to the brain that it wasn t built for, and it ll be interesting to see what other sensations and effects emerge from prolonged use. Let s hope it s not slowly melting my brain. If I start ranting about hearing voices and tasting colours in this column, please alert the authorities.

Jerry s Place is a Rift demo that lets you explore Jerry Seinfeld s apartment, as featured in hit 90s sitcom Seinfeld. I ve watched every episode a handful of times and I know the place inside out, but seeing it in 3D, and walking around it, was a bizarre feeling. Then I watched the show a couple of nights later and really felt like I d been on the set before. I had a sense of it as a physical space, rather than a 2D projection. I really hope I see more of this in the future. Exploring film and TV sets in Rift could become huge, and like the virtual cinema, open it up to a much wider audience outside of gaming. Imagine being able to wander around the Starship Enterprise, or Twin Peaks, or Winterfell, or well, you get the idea. Developers could work with set designers to make these worlds as accurate as possible. If this becomes a thing, I might just live inside the Rift forever.

Download Jerry s Place
Plug time! What drives a man to recreate a set from a 90s sitcom for a futuristic VR headset? I ask the creator of Jerry s Place this, and more, in the next issue of PC Gamer.

Community FAQ
Want to know something about Oculus Rift? Ask and Andy will answer. Tweet your questions to @pc_gamer with the hashtag #oculusfaq or leave them in the comments.

Any side effects from playing it for prolonged times? Dave Jewitt

People react differently to using the Rift. I know at least one person who had to take it off after five minutes because it made them feel sick. But I ve been mostly fine. Besides overheating, I ve had the occasional mild headache, which didn t last for more than a few minutes, and a slight feeling of seasickness after smashing my ship into an asteroid in Elite: Dangerous. The one exception is Half-Life 2, which made me feel like I was going to vomit almost immediately. I m not sure why. It could be the high frame rate, or the field of view. It s hard to tell when you re in there.

How much is a Rift, and is it worth waiting for an updated consumer version? Eoin Hurrell

Anyone can order a development kit from the Oculus VR website for $300 (about 180), but you won t be getting the full experience. This version is a much lower resolution than the consumer model will be. It s still impressive, and the sensation of 3D still works, but it s not in HD. I can only imagine what it ll look like in 1080p. As soon as we get one of the new Crystal Cove prototypes, which have a higher display resolution and more accurate head tracking, I ll let you know how much better it is. But if you have the money, the development kit is still a lot of fun to play with. There are hundreds of games, tech demos, applications, and other playthings to experiment with, which can be downloaded from sites like RiftEnabled.

How many times have you gasped and gone Oh, fuck Athene Allen

Many, many times. One of my favourite things is seeing peoples reactions as they use the Rift for the first time. It s always the same: gasping, swearing, and inevitably saying Wow! as something flies past their head. I can see why the Rift has generated so much buzz, because the first time you use it you can t help but be impressed. There s no hard sell required: Oculus just have to strap it to a potential investor s head and wait for the money to roll in. Even now, after having clocked at least 30 hours in the thing, I still find myself exclaiming out loud, or staring in awe at things with my mouth hanging open.

For more adventures in virtual reality, return next Tuesday for the next edition of The Rift Report.

Okay, an apology. I used the word "action" in the headline, which may be a little misleading. This is an upcoming multiplayer mod for Euro Truck Simulator 2, after all. At no point does anything explode. Foreign drug dealers don't speed past in convertibles, shooting up the side of each cab with AK47s. We don't even see a heroic figure in a leather jacket jumping between each truck. Instead, a few friends take to the virtual roads of Europe, sharing the perverse sense of belonging that comes with being in a convoy. And sticking to the speed limit.



It's still early in the mod's development, but the eventual plan sounds extremely exciting. Again, exciting is a relative term.

"ETS2MP is an upcoming mod for the game Euro Truck Simulator allowing you to participate in convoys with people from all over the world on our Global Servers! Make new friends as you venture around Europe ensuring that you stick to the time limits or your company might get a fine! Trucking could never be more real with the use of a CB Radio to communicate with the others around you, however don't forget mistakes can cost you! Also within ETS2MP's global servers there will be extra custom maps available for you to drive too such as the 'Meeting Point' created especially for special events."

You can track the mod's progress over at ModDB, or at the ETS2MP site.

And if all that failed to get you in the mood, maybe this will help.

Written by Angus Morrison

For a cathartic two minutes of destruction, SCS Software, developers of Euro Truck Simulator 2, have released a video of cars being dropped from great big cranes. The profits from the Halloween Paint Job Pack have been reinvested, allowing the team to spend a day crashing, smashing and otherwise invalidating their insurance to capture new audio for ETS2. A likely story.



Quite when the new audio will be making it into the game is anyone’s guess, but SCS have hinted that there is more to come. In the coming weeks, the hearty song of a V8 engine might accompany the music of metal.

Thanks, RPS!

Bundles are so 2012. Okay, they're still pretty 2013 too, and the Humble Bundle organisers are planning to run both them and the Weekly Sale offers in future. Now, though, they've expanded their Humble enterprise to include a permanent store front, from which you can buy a selection of indie and indie-ish games. To celebrate the store's launch, they're running a sale that knocks 50-75% off the entirety of the (currently small) catalogue. More deals - and therefore more games - are scheduled to appear over the next few days.

It's an attractive page, and laudable for its clarity - instantly showing you exactly what formats are available for each game. Buying a game works a lot like buying a Humble Bundle, with each purchase providing a link to a page full of download options that can be claimed by your central Humble account. The one difference is that the prices are set, as is the distribution of your cash. 10% of the stores profits go to charity, although currently, the only causes being supported are Child's Play, the EFF, American Red Cross, World Land Trust, and Charity: Water.

Head over to The Humble Store now for a selection of pretty great games at pretty cheap prices. Even better, all prices are in dollars, which - at least for us in the UK - will likely mean a further saving after currency conversion. Personal recommendations from the current crop include The Swapper, Rogue Legacy, and the almighty Euro Truck Simulator 2. I should also praise Gunpoint, but as it was created by our former Section Editor, I am entirely too biased on this. These specific deals will run until 7pm GMT.

Games come either as Steam keys, DRM free downloads, or both, so be sure to check what you're getting if you have a particular beef with either distribution style.

News of a Euro Truck Simulator 2 expansion shipped out a few weeks ago. It took a while to get here, though: arriving on the back of a lorry pocked with dents, it's many fines and tickets flapping about the windscreen. Having played the game, I sympathise. Now that it's here we can delve into info about the game's first DLC, Going East, which adds a number of Eastern European cities to the game.

That means one thing: tanks!



Not playable tanks, of course. Fun fact: tanks are not trucks.

The DLC promises thirteen additional cities, spanning Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. It's a big increase to the available land mass, even if it would be nice to see some other parts of the game, such as available cargo types, get a boost too.

SCS do suggest that more DLC is planned for the future. "Once this is all done," they write, "the DLC team will be facing the big question - what next? Another territory expansion?" The smiley face afterwards would suggest that yes, that is a safe bet.

The developers previously announced that they're planning to patch Oculus Rift support into the game. Personally, I'm hoping for Razer Hydra support too. Then we'd really get to live a true simulation of the truck driving lifestyle:

Accurate road-rage modelling? Well, I can dream.

Going East will be released on 20th September. If you're not sure why I've dedicated hundreds of words and a silly photoshop to a game about driving on motorways, you should really check out our review.

Steam is a distribution platform that thinks "because it's a Tuesday" is a good reason to cheapen up some games. As such, it's only to be expected that bigger milestones are an excuse for even bigger sales. Reasons like "because it's a Friday," or "because Greenlight is a year old". It's the latter that's cause for some series discounts, with an Anniversary event that flays up to 75% off some titles that have made it through the digital pageant.

Fifty Greenlight titles have been discounted, including great games like Euro Truck Simulator 2, Papers Please, Receiver, Rogue Legacy, Kentucky Route Zero, Surgeon Simulator 2013, and Euro Truck Simulator 2.

Did I mention that you could get Euro Truck Simulator 2 for 66% off? I did? Okay then.

Since its introduction, Greenlight has sparked controversy and criticism, but it's hard not to look at the list and - however grudgingly - admit that it's done some good. There are some genuinely great, and often interesting games being approved, and it's heartening to see them find a home inside Steam. Yes, there's also Dragon's Lair, but I guess there's no accounting for taste.

There are definitely flaws to the system, too, most notably that it isn't very transparent. Other factors are seemingly as important as votes, and the approval process can often appear arbitrary. Even Gabe Newell has spoken critically about the process, although an alternative has yet to surface. Still, with the recent bulk approval of 100 games, it seems the bottleneck is starting to be resolved.

To reminisce on its one year anniversary, has Greenlight had much impact on your Steam purchases?