Image from the Grand Utopia website. All rights reserved to the project
I uninstalled Euro Truck Simulator 2 (ETS2) a few weeks ago. I needed the space to install another game and try it out. That game was cool but not as good as ETS2, so I replaced it with the truck driving simulator. However, after watching a streamer use it, I added the Grand Utopia mod.
Grand Utopia is a map mod of a fictional island, partially inspired by the game's French map. The best thing about it is it uses a 1:1 scale, unlike the official game maps, which means a trip takes around the same time as it would in real life for its distance. The scenery is also well made but uses more graphic elements, so expect it to utilize more resources.
I've been playing with this mod for over a week and enjoy it very much. The new places to unlock, the beautiful sceneries, and the 1:1 scale add to a pleasant gaming experience. I cannot recommend it enough.
If you want to try Grand Utopia, there's one thing you need to do: create a new profile. It won't work with your current profiles and will even crash the game if you try to force it on an existing one.
I'm a Football Manager player. You probably already read a blog post I published about this game series. Despite playing the game for years, I haven't done a true journeyman save. I've had saves where I start in the lower division available in a country and take the team to win the Champions League, but not one of these. I attempted to do one a while back but stayed at the first team I managed – task failed successfully.
One of my saves on FM24, using the game mode that allows you to create your own team. I started on the lowest Portuguese division available in the game.
I've been playing Championship Manager and, after that, Football Manager since 1995 or 1996. The name change was due to a fallout between Eidos and Sports Interactive around the mid-2000s, with the latter launching the Football Manager series after the event and the one that became successful. The new Championship Manager and its inferior gameplay disappeared into the annals of history.
My first game of this franchise was Championship Manager 2. A neighbor knew my parents had bought me my first computer, asked me if I had some floppy disks, and then made me a copy of the game.
One of the games I've been playing is Euro Truck Simulator 2. I played the Windows version under Proton for over a year, maybe over two years, and the performance was good, considering I don't have a dedicated GPU on my laptop. However, after the 1.45 or 1.46 version update, the game performance decreased severely and crashed frequently.
I posted about this on Mastodon, and someone mentioned that the Linux version had good performance. I'd had issues with the Linux version a few years ago but decided to try and see how it performed. Surprisingly, the performance was better than when the Windows port worked well with Proton for me.
Image from the Grand Utopia website. All rights reserved to the project
One of my saves on FM24, using the game mode that allows you to create your own team. I started on the lowest Portuguese division available in the game.