YMMV / Euro Truck Simulator

• Broken Base: Over the "Euro Tourist Simulator" debate regarding the direction the game has gone for and should go in. One faction sees Truck Simulator as having gone too far in focusing on the map expansions and accessibility at the expense of the core trucking simulation, and should seek to reorient itself with more varied gameplay alongside long-awaited physics and graphical improvements. The other faction enjoys the exploration and road-tripping side of the game, and appreciate that the simulation can be heavily toned down for players that just want to make deliveries around Europe at their own pace.
• Growing the Beard: Many agree that Scandinavia is a major improvement over both the base game and Going East. The roads are more realistic and challenging, the scenery is more beautiful and varied, and a greater amount of effort is made to reflect the unique traits of each country. These improvements would carry on to both future expansions and American Truck Simulator, to the point where many fans wish for the base game's map to be brought up to current standards, a wish that will be granted beginning with update 1.32's refresh of Germany.
• Most Wonderful Sound: The crank that raises and lowers the trailer's legs. When attaching the trailer, it's aural shorthand for "all set, let's go!". When detaching the trailer, especially after a long drive from St. Petersburg to Marseille, it's aural shorthand for "FINALLY, JOB DONE, TIME TO RAKE IN THE CASH".
• Nightmare Fuel: Yes, even this game, thanks to the lighting system that was implemented in Version 1.40 in both this and its sister game, American Truck Simulator. Driving at full speed on the highway at nighttime during a thunderstorm, having not only heavy fog, and rain obscuring the windshield even when at full power, unable to see anything due to a lack of lights in most places, except for a split second when lightning strikes. You will not be able to see the road beyond a few feet even with high beams on, let alone see any traffic except for a few blurry lights. It makes for a terrifying driving experience. Roof and grill spotlights helps somewhat with high beams but if you play realistically, you may not be able to keep them on if there's frequent oncoming traffic.
• Periphery Demographic:
  • 4chan's video game board loves this game. It's one of the few games you will never hear complaints about.
  • Brutal Moose, in his video on it, admits to being this. He says that, despite wanting to minimize time driving in real life, he loves this game.
  • Yahtzee Croshaw of Zero Punctuation admitted that he originally bought this game only for the purpose of making fun of it in his Let's Drown Out series. However he got really into it, and for a while it became his go-to game for relaxing and unwinding after playing the games that he needed to review.
• Sequel Displacement: Most fans of the game have probably never played the first Euro Truck Simulator, or its two country-based spinoffs. Or any of SCS Software's other ten previous truck simulators for that matter.
• That One Achievement:
  • "Pathfinder", which requires exploring 100% of the map. While the GPS does show which roads you have travelled on, you still need to cover every inch of road and enter every depot across the entirety of Europe. There are many places on the map that make it time-consuming to try and cover entirely in one drive, whether that be due to a road splitting in two, or a complex gas station or intersection requiring every little road to be driven on. The kicker is that any update that modifies a road means that road must be driven on again, and the map expansions are also required to meet the total if you have them installed. Overall, "Pathfinder" is the perfect example of an achievement that isn't technically difficult, but is extremely time consuming to attempt.
  • Any achievement that requires completing a delivery to every example of a specific depot, which unlike "Pathfinder" offers no way of tracking which ones you've already completed unless you are keeping count yourself.
  • "Minimaxer", which requires earning 20,000 XP in consecutive jobs totalling under 10,000 KM. This one is difficult primarily because its deliveries require that you fulfil a very specific cargo criteria, all the while ensuring that you drive perfectly to gain the best possible end of job bonus. While many achievements of its category can be obtained eventually through regular play, "Minimaxer" is one you must make a plan for if you wish to complete it.
• That One Level:
  • Parking at any Trameri in Euro Truck Simulator 2 is a nightmare. The entrance gate is only as wide as your truck, meaning your rig needs to enter perfectly straight in order for your trailer to clear it, and there's no way to angle dock from the driver's side if you're in a left-hand cabin. To make matters even worse, using the auto-park feature at certain Trameris would sometimes glitch the game (though this has since been fixed).
    • Another place that's rather hard to park is the small Norrfood market in Scandinavia. You basically have to reverse all the way from the entrance.
  • The area of Europoort and Rotterdam isn't bad in single player, but if you are playing the multiplayer mod then you can expect lots of congestion and lag thanks to the tight roads that bottlenecks players trying to get through a busy zone due to it being the most convenient ferry connection to England (just like in Real Life!), and you can bet that all those drivers cause quite a number of collisions, head-on crashes, and full-on flips. For a while, there was even a Twitch.tv channel dedicated to live streaming the area!
  • Crossing the Channel for the first time. Expect lots of awkward manoeuvres and oncoming traffic near misses while you get used to driving on the other side of the road. There's a reason why British ferry terminal exits have a big sign in four languages that says "DRIVE ON LEFT". It takes getting used to whether you're British or otherwise.
    • The UK in-game is also infamous for having lots of speed camera traps, often with sudden drops in the speed limit designed to catch players out, blatantly a consequence of how old the UK map is (it's a slightly modified version of the UK Truck Simulator map, which after the Germany rework is the oldest remaining part of the game). There's a degree of Truth in Television given how speed camera happy the UK is in real life, but not quite this much.
  • The Iberia DLC introduces the Cantera Iberica in A Coruña. The prefab itself is nothing special, but the road to and from it can be a nightmare to navigate, being a narrow (as in, not much wider than your truck) backroad with multiple tight turns hemmed in with walls, and possibly cars parked in just the right area to make it that much harder. On top of that, Cantera Iberica is a mining company, so some loads (such as the heavy bulldozer) require lengthened lowboy trailers, for extra fun.

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