This game is kind of interesting for 3 or 4 jobs and then you realize it's actually fairly shallow.
The graphics are adequate, this isn't the kind of game that really demands anything amazing, so no complaints there.
You can flip between a few radio stations to listen to some tunes while you work but they all sound fairly similar and are of the techno/rock/dubstep variety. A "loadThis game is kind of interesting for 3 or 4 jobs and then you realize it's actually fairly shallow.
The graphics are adequate, this isn't the kind of game that really demands anything amazing, so no complaints there.
You can flip between a few radio stations to listen to some tunes while you work but they all sound fairly similar and are of the techno/rock/dubstep variety. A "load your own music" option would have been amazing, or at least a few different genres of music (with maybe some licensed songs?), but I understand this is an indie/budget game so not all things are possible.
The controls and mouse feel a little clunky, like there's a slight delay in the look speed. Not a huge deal since precise mouse control isn't really necessary, but could definitely be better.
Now let's get down to the nuts and bolts of what really matters: the gameplay.
It has a nice aesthetic to it... each part can be highlighted by mousing over it and will glow green, yellow or red depending on the condition of the part, making it easy to see if a part needs replacing.
You receive work orders from customers that give you a clue as to what needs to be repaired. Sometimes it will only say something like "the steering feels loose" and then you can dive in and figure out why. Other times the customer will pretty much spell it out for you like "it's shifting funny, I think the clutch is bad." I found that all too often the hints were too obvious. Most of the time a person taking a car to a mechanic isn't going to know exactly what needs to be replaced unless it's something obvious. That kind of takes the thinking aspect of it away and simply turns it into a tedious checklist to complete.
Actually working on the cars is where I think I had my biggest complaint. There are essentially 8 "hubs" that you can work from: each wheel, the engine, the undercarriage (front and back) and the interior. The problem is that you can often see parts from any of these hubs while working through another. For example I had to replace a clutch... well in order to access the gearbox you first have to remove the drive axles from each wheel. Well I was currently working through the "engine hub" and although I could see the drive axles and actually mouse over them, it wouldn't let me work on them until I backed out of the engine hub, walked over to the left wheel hub, remove the wheel, then remove the drive axle, do the same for the right wheel, then go back to the engine hub and remove the gearbox. In short, it just wasn't very intuitive unless the idea is that you wouldn't be able to remove a drive axle in real life unless you remove the wheel etc. It should either let you work on any part of the car at any time, or only show you the parts you can work on through that hub, that way you're not confused as to what parts can be accessed through what hubs.
Another thing that was confusing was part repairs. The only thing the tutorial shows you is how to do is use the car lift. Nothing is mentioned about repairing parts. So when a customer wanted a starter replaced for $100, I went to my parts store and saw that a new one would cost well over $100. So instead I checked the used parts store and found one for under $100. I bought it and went to install it then realized that the used part I just bought had a condition of 7%, so it was useless. That's when I realized you can actually repair certain parts at the work bench. So I spent another $90 repairing the part I just bought and actually lost money on that job. Would have been nice if they could have mentioned that parts can be repaired in the tutorial.
Some jobs require you to perform a test drive. This feels like it was arbitrarily thrown in just to provide a different gameplay aspect. Every time you test drive you must do an acceleration check, brake check, slalom and rumble strips. The problem is that I never noticed a difference when, for example, driving a car with loose steering through the slalom. Nothing could be learned or diagnosed by performing these functions, it's just a pointless checklist to complete and it handles the same regardless of what problems the car has. It also got boring after the first time I was forced to do it.
For labeling itself a simulator, it also could use a lot more variety. All of the cars are front wheel drive, they all look the same under the hood, and although it includes all the major components of what makes a car run, it never gets down to the nitty gritty parts of the engine, etc.
All in all it's not a terrible game, especially at a budget price, but fairly early on you realize it's just not that deep of a game, and after 4 or 5 jobs it was already becoming tedious. Might be worth $5 or so but I can't recommend it for $20.… Expand
Car Mechanic Simulator 2014Your Score0 out of 10User Score
