Euro Truck Simulator has been sitting near the top of the App Store chart for a while now, so we thought we'd take it for a spin.
It's an interesting game that re-creates the road network of Europe and a haulage lorry, which you drive around carrying cargo from depot to depot. See Train Simulator 2013 review.
You'd be hard pushed to refer to Euro Truck Simulator as a true simulation of haulage. It takes a lot of liberties: the road network is much smaller (London to Manchester takes about 15 minutes), less detailed and the trucks are – we imagine – much easier to drive than real life trucks. Take a look ay 4 Pics 1 Word (What's the Word?) review.
It's not exactly an arcade game, however, most of the game is played in first person-view inside the cabin and at your control are indicators, lights, wipers, hazard warning lights and you can elect to also use manual transmission. We particularly like the way you can look around the cab using the mouse while driving along (and you need to look around to check the mirrors). See also: Mac OS X games
External views make the game a little easier though, especially the vertical camera which you use to pick up and let go of trailers.
The gameplay is a trading affair, so it's a bit like a space trader (except set on the roads of Europe). You buy cargo and sell cargo, buy fuel and spend the money upgrading your truck.
Mac gamers who've played Bus Driver (also by SCS Software) will be surprised that the gameplay is much different. Whereas Bus Driver has more of a point-based game structure (where you lose points for failing to indicate, braking too hard, skipping lights and so on). In Euro Truck Simulator you don't have to follow traffic rules to the same extent, although you are fined for breaking traffic rules and causing damage to goods. There is also an option to enable fatigue simulation and you'll need to stop at rest stops after every 12 hours of time (that's game time, not real time).
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