Cheap Car Repair Review (PC)

You don’t need to have a moral compass to be a full-time mechanic, but you do, however, need to have a certain way with words—a meticulous vocabulary that allows you to fabricate the truth and undermine the narrative. “I’ll do you a favor,” for example, means “I’ll do whatever it takes to make this engine work, even if it means cutting corners.” Similarly, “I can promise you that these are legitimate components” effectively means “trust me, I’m a professional. And no, I most definitely have not used a kitchen sponge as an air filter.” The point is, you don’t need to lift the hood to earn a few bucks. You just need to pretend that you did and hope that whoever is driving the car away won’t break down after thirty yards. Not that this is uncommon in Cheap Car Repair, mind you.

Unlike Car Mechanic Simulator, the aim of the game isn’t to carefully rebuild old vehicles and delicately finesse the components with original factory parts. Rather, it’s about swindling the system and cutting corners wherever possible, not to exacerbate the issue, but to keep an old Polish garage in business. To some extent, it’s about juggling profit with integrity; a cheap rebuild equals a higher return, but a visible botch job can also result in an unexpected confrontation with a customer who, annoyingly, has more of an insight into what makes an engine tick than they originally let on.

To point out the obvious, Cheap Car Repair isn’t a tutorial on how to repair vehicles; it’s a comical gig that allows you to get creative with your work. And that’s where the heart of the game is: in the repair process. See, where you would typically resort to proper methods and legitimate parts to ensure the sturdiness of a vehicle in a traditional simulation game, Cheap Car Repair requires you to take a lot of shortcuts. And by that I mean, bundling whatever you find in a scrapyard to make a poor car a little less, well, shoddy. If it runs, it will earn you a bit of cash for your back pocket, which ultimately leads to better upgrades for your garage and more leeway for your mischievous methods.

Surprisingly, repairing cars is just one of the things that you can do here. Oh, Cheap Car Repair is also a sandbox game, too, weirdly. In addition to the garage antics and the questionable procedures, you also have a town to explore, side quests to tackle, and a whole host of mini-games to take part in. But for the most part, it’s a trial and error thing—a shot in the dark that, on the rarest of occasions, goes well. Not that you need a bachelor’s degree in automotive science or engineering to glue pantyhose to an engine, mind you.  But hey, as long as it rolls, right? Right?

It goes without saying at this point, but Cheap Car Repair isn’t a serious game. Despite the fact that it features a thin layer of tactical gameplay—a veil that invites you to manage finances, manipulate clients, and decide whether or not to botch a repair job or handle it with tender love and care—the experience itself is about as comical as they come. Given that you can spend your time either drifting around a town in a raggedy junker or sticking sponges to loose pieces of old bodywork, at no point does the experience ever feel like a demanding job, much less one that’s visibly, or at least mechanically accurate.

As the saying goes, if you can dream it, you can build it. The thing with cheap cars is that, most dreams are a little less flamboyant and expensive. Take the repair work, for example. In most cases, there isn’t a lot for you to ponder. Instead, it’s merely the case of painting over rusty patches, scraping debris from modular parts, or sourcing circular items that have the power to steer a vehicle. It’s a messy business, but one that is, in spite of all its controversial procedures, a whole lot of fun to watch unfold. That is, of course, until it all toppled over and comes back to bite you.

Granted, most of the fun here is in the swindling act itself. As each choice you make has a consequence—a caveat that can either result in a garage in turmoil or a drastic loss of income—it can be oddly satisfying to see how your decisions will affect the business in the long term. Moreover, as the game offers a substantial amount of missions, encounters, and a fairly large world to explore, it can be a lot of fun to just roll with and enjoy at face value. It’s ridiculous I’ll admit, but just as entertaining, funnily enough.

Verdict

Cheap Car Repair doesn’t aim to reinvent the wheel; it chooses to make its own out of old duct tape and leftover pantyhose from a Polish pensioner. And yet, even with a lack of legitimate components of its own and a severe lack of mechanical prowess, it still finds a way to make it to its destination, not as a well-oiled vessel of power and competence, but as a laughably flawed soapbox with a surprisingly sturdy backbone. It works well with what it has under the hood, is what I’m saying here — and I think that’s what matters most.

Suffice it to say that, if you are on the market for an authentic imitation of a classic car restoration sim, then you might as well abandon the hopes of ever finding the tool to scratch that itch in this particular Polish setting. If it’s a comical restoration sim that knows how to laugh at its own expense that tickles your fancy, however, then you should be able to get your money’s worth here. For better or worse, there is an entertaining sim to fool around with. You just need to know how to scrape the rust off of it to make it, well, functional.