Now if you would have told me, even a month ago, that I would be writing about Euro Truck Simulator 2 I wouldn’t have believed you. ETS2 was one of the first games I bought on Steam almost exactly 10 years ago, according to my purchase history. I picked it up because it was on sale (of course) and because it was one of those “must own” games with Overwhelmingly Positive reviews. The year prior I had been in a bad car accident and had a lot of anxiety related to driving. In a way, playing ETS2, even with a controller on a laptop, was a cathartic experience. I don’t think I played it all that long, probably pulled away by all the other shiny things on Steam. I bought Hero Siege the same week, and that’s still one of my most played games.

After meeting the Squad 3 years later, I dipped back into ETS2 once or twice a year. It’s SuperToast’s main game and he’s been streaming it on our twitch channel almost every Thursday since 2017. Every once and a while we’ll join him for some shenanigans. Usually involving a lot of crashes.

Last Christmas, I was home for the holidays and visited Blades. We took out his old racing wheel setup, hooked it up to a PS3, and played a bunch of Gran Turismo 3. It was the first time I had ever played a racing game with a racing wheel and I was hooked! When we got back home, I immediately ordered a wheel and a wheel stand and got very into Assetto Corsa and Automobilista for the next few months. As usual, my interest fell off and my wheel has been sitting next to my desk ever since.

Last month, I started contributing to OpenStreetMap after realizing my neighborhood was missing from the map while playing MissionChief. I wrote a little about OpenStreetMap before but you can think of it like Wikipedia for maps. Anyone can contribute to or edit the map with the goal of providing open spatial data to whoever wants to use it. It got me interested in learning more about maps, map making, and geography.

ETS2 sits in the middle of both of these things. It’s way more fun and immersive to play with a wheel over a controller. Though, when I bought my wheel, I didn’t buy a gear shifter, so I’ve been driving my trucks around using paddle shifters like a race car…

I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised that I’m so into this game right now. The last few Decembers have been the time I typically get back into Elite: Dangerous. You don’t have to look hard to find Elite described as Space trucking. I Flying spaceships is cool, driving a truck doesn’t seem like it would be quite as exciting. But! It’s super relaxing and it’s the perfect podcast game!