Introducing Euro Truck Simulator 2! Well…I’m not really introducing it to you as you are probably already familiar with it. But I’m introducing it to myself. I recently picked ETS2 up when Stream had it on sale at a tremendously low, low, low price. I think I paid less than $7 USD for it. As I had obviously heard so much about it and watched many streams and YouTube videos about it, I decided I couldn’t go wrong with the price. So I pulled the trigger, downloaded and installed it.
Now for a little backstory. Of course, I’ve known about ETS2 for a long time. Much like I had heard about the popular Farming Simulator franchise. For so many years I only spent time flying my computer simulation programs. Remember, I’ve been flying computer based sims since the mid 1980’s. So over 30 years. Again, I’ve watched streams and videos about ETS2 and while I found them interesting, I didn’t really think I myself would enjoy playing them. While these titles (Farming and Euro Truck) both have Simulator in their titles, I really didn’t think they would match up to the same level of immersion that I would find with Flight Simulation.
My getting started with virtual farming sort of came at a time where my travel schedule started picking up and I wanted to find something I could play on a lower end gaming laptop. So I decided Farming Simulator would be something that could keep me entertained versus watching TV in the hotel. I was right. All I needed was my Logitech XBox type controller and my gaming laptop. After a few days of virtual farming I decided to investigate to see if I could find any blogs about Farming Simulator. While I found some, most were not in English and/or hadn’t been updated in many months. So I decided to start one. Of course now that I’m also enjoying ETS2, I really haven’t found many ETS2 blogs (but I also haven’t looked) and it has led me to start one but I didn’t want to have to keep up with three blog sites and then what do I do when I want to start another simulation blog site?
The idea for this new blog site really came about after I captured the screenshot below. This shot was not staged, it just happened to be a random shot. Do you see it? Do you see the symbolism here? We have a truck (representing ETS2) and that truck is pulling two tractors (representing Farming Simulator). But look carefully….in the background is an airplane on approach into Brussels airport. I call this photo the trifecta. The only thing it is missing is a train.
So yes…I’m now trying to juggle how to give equal time to my simulation based games. The good news is ETS2 plays well on the gaming laptop and I’m still traveling a fair deal. So look for more posts about all my simulation gaming interests here on my new blog site.
Now with regards to any “real life” experience I might have which could coincide with ETS2. Well, about 25 years ago I did hold a commercial drivers license (Class A CDL) in the state of Texas. I drove tractor trailer rigs for the Dr. Pepper Bottling Company. I left that life behind and jumped headfirst into the IT world. Will my truck driving experience help with ETS2? Time will tell and I’ll be sure to tell you all about it real soon.
Until next time…
Happy Trucking!!!
JT