On Truck Simulators and Romanticism

It's interesting to me reading other people's experiences when playing Euro Truck Simulator 2 and now American Truck Simulator. The way they let their imagination enhance everything and how their preconceived notions color the way they look at a particular part of the world is fascinating. Whether it's North Americans in Europe or Europeans in America, there's something about their perception of the world around them that is adorable, and I find myself doing the same thing.

We all grow up somewhere and our surroundings are largely what we view as simply being "the way things are". The streets, neighborhoods, buildings, nature, it's all there and we go about our daily routines in this environment all the time without giving it much thought. There isn't any mystique surrounding hopping in the car and going to the park, commuting to work, or getting groceries. We've been down those streets so many times that it's just going through the motions for the most part.

However, while far away countries have streets, neighborhoods, buildings, and even nature, we don't see them every day, so we have to fill in the nuanced gaps with our own ideas of those places. The shops will be different, possibly in another language, they have makes and models of cars there that we don't, there may even be completely different laws governing how one drives. We're fuzzy on the details but the whole thing sounds so exciting!

This really started to hit home for me when I was driving around in American Truck Simulator. Having lived my whole life in this part of the world, I found myself having a different take on the experience compared to that of Europeans who were sharing their thoughts on the game. They seemed to be blissfully embarking on their own personal Jack Kerouac-inspired road trip across the US of A. Kudos to them for having that connection with the game, but my thoughts hovered around how brown the experience was and the legions of classic 50s cars on the road. Do the developers genuinely believe that there are so many mint condition mid-50s Mercuries cruising America's highways? After a while, every time I saw one of these things the only thought that crossed my mind was that this game needs more Camrys.

There is still a lot of fun to be had. The game is very good. However, I couldn't get this romanticized je ne sais quoi while hauling across California. It was neat driving into Los Angeles for the first time, and the scenery can be pretty when in more lush, green parts of the state, but at the end I wonder if I'm just too close to all of this. Having seen these roads and many more just like them all of my life there isn't this wistful, dream-like state of mind that sets in while soaking up the ambience.

Meanwhile, I couldn't drive two blocks in Euro Truck Simulator 2 without being swept away by something distinctly not North American. "Is that a roundabout?!?" *swoon* "Look, flags! We're crossing the border again!" "Wow, England sure has an awful lot of speed cameras!" "Right-side drive really is the best thing ever."

These are the sort of things that I think about when playing ETS2. Europeans would probably look at me strangely and ask, "Don't you guys have these things?" No, not really. Side streets around my place started having things that look vaguely like roundabouts a few years ago to stop people from speeding, but we have nothing of the size and majesty of European ones, never mind having any sort of hope to get a big rig around them.

The point is that these are things that I have a basic concept of floating around in my brain, but since I don't see them everyday they seem far off and different. Driving around virtual Europe in my virtual, right-side drive big rig is like going to Narnia for me, while hopping in a Peterbuilt and taking some cheese to Sacramento feels like just another day of doing chores. The romance is gone. With that, I don't just look at games like ETS2 and ATS as simply being simulations, but rather an escape into a world we have a basic understanding of while dolling them up with our own biases, making what would normally be mundane somehow strangely magical.