I imagine the unseen customers' gratitude and awe as I return their restored vehicle to them, which means more than the clump of money I can only spend on car parts anyway. What was broken is now mended, all thanks to me. And there's something that ATS doesn't quite conjure the real satisfaction of a job well done at the end of it. A jigsaw of components, taken apart and put back together, a picture of mechanical near-perfection taking shape before your eyes. Slow, methodical progress towards a destination, the gradual identification of worn-out parts and replacement thereof with shiny new ones. I couldn't have been more wrong: CMS is, like American Truck Sim, all about a state of zen calm. Tedium incarnate, the sole reserve of car spods and/or people with infinite patience. The Car Mechanic Simulator games never held the same appeal - that of motion, roads, wilderness, cities, freedom - because they're essentially about being locked inside one garage, memorising the names and shapes of various bits of metal and plastic. It's not real, of course - I don't have the money worries, the exhaustion, the awful motels, and most of all the grim certainty of doing this every day forever, as opposed to a psychic holiday - but nonetheless I dream of that being my life. Its fusion of the realistic and the romantic results in a sense that the unhurried, low-pressure, solitary conveyance of goods across iconic (and also humdrum) American landscapes is the solution to all my anxieties. My central criteria for what I'd call a job simulation game is whether it instils within me a desire to kick my own employment to the curb and pursue that profession in real life.Īmerican Truck Simulator, a game about very slowly moving some boxes from point A to point B, is the contender to beat here, of course. That's true whether you have any interest in or knowledge of cars yourself (I know I don't).
But at the same time, you should absolutely keep a close eye on this singularly captivating and cathartic game, and return once it's been made road-worthy. It's a hot mess (as the developers themselves admit) - enough of a hot mess that I beseech you to steer clear of for the time being. I've spent a day and a half so far with Car Mechanic Simulator 2018 and, though I really do dig the core experience, enough's enough. Consider this piece to be 'what I somewhat think', or perhaps a demi-review, if you don't go in for our larky terminology.