American Truck Simulator

therapeutically monotonous, like most simulation games, but the pure amount of dedication to making a well-balanced upgrade tree and a vast amount of expansion sets is admirable, if a bit much in a fun way

perfect relaxing driving game. even better with friends. got introduced to this by a few friends and my goodness is it fun to just mess around on the open road. even tho the DLCs cost lots of money, they are super worth it, especially if its a state that you live in or are very familiar with. not much else to the game, just turn your brain off and let the road take you on a journey, and along the way make some money.

i actually really like it, i find that driving games really calm my brain.

+ Great sequel to ETS2.
+ Was a bit lackluster when I came out, now in a much better state.
- American trucks seem to take up even more screen area in cockpit camera, which makes it less enjoyable to drive around if you want to look at something else other than the dashboard.

ATS really is just ETS2 with an American skin over it—the devs are all European, and it definitely shows, sometimes feeling too small for its ambitions. I sometimes wish the scale was a bit bigger, though the current one of 1:20 is still a massive improvement over the original 1:35. The biggest weaknesses in the map come from this scale, particularly with cities, something that SCS never really figured out how to believably depict. Sure, they've gotten better—in fact, everything about their mapping skills have gotten tremendously better since the original two states—but urban sprawl is definitely the weak point, going from rural to urban with not much transition. With how whatever the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and San Diego feel with their lack of suburban sprawl and unrealistic skylines, I worry about how SCS will fare in a decade trying to map out the Northeast at such a small scale, managing to include all the cities between Boston and Washington, D.C.

When it comes to the base game, I can see how ATS can be underwhelming; the gameplay is very basic, solely hinging on driving from one point to another, the only challenges being parking your trailer manually or having to deal with shoddy AI, both of which are optional. The business aspect of the game has no challenge; as long as you keep playing, you will keep earning, though there are mods to up the difficulty. The devs are lucky that so many people find virtually driving a calming/fun experience, as it's all any of their games have to offer, and, honestly, I'm okay with that.

DLC and mods definitely enhance the experience, particularly maps. While SCS's earliest states definitely show their age, their newest works in Idaho, Colorado, and Wyoming drive very well, cities and landscapes feeling and looking accurate. Hell, all of the map DLCs are of a better standard than the original two, and it's only now that that's starting to change as SCS gives California its overdue rework. Map mods supplements the states well, with ProMods doing amazing work in British Columbia and Team Reforma adding many high quality areas in Mexico, the Mojave, and the Sierra Nevada.

Just the base game is about a middling six; with DLC and mods it's probably a high eight.

I know saying something "feels" like a DLC for a larger game has been done to death, but with American Truck Sim, it's really true. American Truck Sim ends up feeling like an ambitious mod of Euro Truck Sim. Perhaps this is due to my perspective as an American.

Having never been to Europe, a new continent is naturally going to be a more fascinating location to me. ETS2 has accumulated more varieties of truck, more locations and perhaps most importantly, a more diverse selection of locations. I'm sure ATS will grow into something beautiful as DLC adds more varied terrain to drive through, but for the time being there are better simulators for driving through an endless desert.

Even if the terrain weren't empty, the lack of other content doesn't really help. I got the feeling that the truck sim games were more about the relaxed experience than they were about pimping out a huge truck, but when the game world feels so empty it's hard to leave satisfied knowing you can't really collect anything if you wanted to. There aren't that many customization options per truck, which wouldn't be an issue if the trucks themselves represented more than 2 brands.

I know I'm shitting on this game a lot given that I've given it 50% of max score. The gameplay isn't bad. If you've played ETS2 you know what you're in for, it's the same game but with a brown haze and a speedometer that reads in MPH. The game doesn't really have bugs, at least none that I've seen. They give you roads to drive on and you do just that. It's a tremendously relaxing experience, even more so if you can rope a friend into playing the multiplayer mod -- at which point the game becomes something you just happen to be doing while having a conversation. This is why scenery matters, though, or else you might as well just be staring at a desktop wallpaper set to play a slideshow of various landscape shots.

It's a pleasant game, but that's about all I can give it. It's not really interesting, it's not really fun, and nothing will compel you to play it later unless you happen to find this relaxing trucker niche engaging in this setting. However, it's soothing, simple, and charming in the way that niche games can often be. It's not enough to make the game great, but it is enough that I put 30 hours in and don't regret purchasing it at full price.