Recent reviews by Smartiekid

This is bad.

The U.I. is very bad.

Progression direction is unclear.

Currencies and their requirements are unclear

When you inevitably try to turn off the God awful sounds you'll find that even the settings menu is a mess.

Even for a free game, this is very sub par

A Very pretty puzzle game, with a requirement to actually use some brain power.

None of the puzzles require any guess work, but some can be cheesed by it.

The biggest drawback with this game is that it's rather short, but for a relatively low asking price, it is more than suitable to scratch an itch

Ok This IS a good game, but I do have things that I feel stop it being a great one.

If you've played House Flipper you'll probably agree with most of my criticisms.

- No Plumbing: Sinks, Toilets, Radiators, Showers. you just plop them down. What happened to the little plumbing part of fitting these things?
- Limited Choice: No carpets, plain Wallpapers etc. Lights and switches are limited to only a few of each too.
Wall and floor coverings are all grouped into one section which seems to be an attempt to hide this limited choice.
- Forced Voice Acting: Don't want to listen to that incoming call, just reject it and you're good right? Right? Riiiight? Nope, they just force you to listen to it as an answer machine message anyway.

Would I recommend this game to people? Maybe.. It depends if they've played House Flipper before.

If they have, NO I wouldn't. It feels too much like a DLC than a successor.

If not, ABSOLUTELY. If you're going to dip your toe into the House Flipper world for the first time, you might as well start with the latest entry.

Edit at completion: Wow! Just, WOW! This game was everything I hoped for and more. A++++ for Sabotage on a game very well done.


Reviewed at ~5 hours game play..

This game looks stunning within the confines of the style it uses. It's like the 16 bit era on speed.

The controls, I used a XBox One controller, are silky smooth and everything responds as you would expect.

The combat system is simple, some would say too simple, but I wouldn't, It has what it needs and it handles it perfectly.

The few dungeons I've done so far have been nice, typical early game stuff with the obligatory hand holding tasks for new abilities etc.

Music - Oh Boy! There is a lot of the usual stuff you would expect from a JRPG style game, emotional damage tracks, victory fanfares boss bangers, and it's all crisp and a delight to listen to.
*****BEWARE*****
When you first hear Dance of 1000 Suns, the one I have dubbed Garl's Theme, make sure to set your volume high and set aside a good ten minutes while you drop all game play and bop away to this instant classic.

The main characters I have met so far are your generic good guys so nothing much to write about there, but it's still early yet so that could change.

Some of the support cast I've encountered up to now are great, even getting some little laughs at the naming and characteristics of some (not gonna spoil here).

Overall:

My first impressions of this game are outstanding. I really do like it. It's not perfect, but it's a damned solid instalment into the modern retro 2D/3D JRPG library.

My fingers are crossed that the rest of the game is as enjoyable for me as the first 5 hours have been.

Oh My Word!

I've waited for this game for so long, and this is the garbage that we're presented with?

Sounds are terrible. Visuals are terrible. Controls are terrible, slow and barely responsive.

It's efforts like this rubbish that are going to kill off the 'Mechanic Simulator' genre.

Have not seen a single furry. 0/10

If you liked the previous Autonauts game, you'll enjoy this one. I've only played a couple of hours so far, and it's definitely scratching that itch.

Runs smoothly. Looks colourful and pretty, and can be challenging once you get to more complex automation.

Like CMS 2015?

Like CMS 2018?

Want more of the same with some nice little additions?

This is very much a more of the same sort of title. If you liked the previous CMS games, you'll more than likely like this one too.

There's a decent amount of default cars to work on, as well as 2 DLC that add a few more into the mix, and now that the workshop is getting fired up there's an unlimited potential for real world cars to dismantle and rebuild.

Graphically, it's very clean.

Sounds are good for the most part. Some sounds are a little bit low res sounding, but not too bad.

Controls for the main aspect of the game (the mechanic part) are sweet. Car driving still needs work though.

Overall a pretty decent title for the price. Good enough that I've put nearly 200 hours into it already.

Update as of 31/08/2021 :

This game appears to have been abandoned, amazing how things change after release huh?

What did show the promise of a very fruitful title has received nothing in updates or news since 2nd April with some early bugs fixes and tweaks.

What is there is still pretty good, but there's simply not enough of it.

It gets very repetitive, very fast and there's no sign of the game's developers adding anything to it or even implementing Workshop support so that players can add to it themselves.

If somebody was tempted to give this game a gentleman's try, I would recommend waiting until it hits a big sale event and you are able to grab it for a couple of £££ rather than the full asking price as in it's currently abandoned state, it simply isn't worth it.


Initial review at release:

Did you enjoy Car Mechanic?

Have you been disappointed by a lot of the recent offerings from the Mechanic Simulator titles?

Did you dream of this stuff when you played the old Mech Warrior games as a kid?

If your answer to any of these questions is yes, then this game is perfect for you.

It looks very pretty, the controls are smooth and intuitive.

This is a glorious return to form for the Mechanic Simulator genre.

There's definitely room for improvement, but it's day 1 and the devs seem to be willing to take constructive criticism on board and use it.

Very much looking forward to what this game's future has to offer.

Just finished a play through of the prologue.

Now I'm really looking forward to the full game.

I'm a big fan of the Car Mechanic simulators with a few hundred hours in them, but I've been stung with some of the other Mechanic Simulator titles. I'm looking at you Plane Mechanic Simulator (that one really was rubbish).

So fingers crossed that this title is a turning point towards the mechanic simulator's return to glorious form.