Gamer Stop Simulator Review (PC)

Entertaining physical media is a lot like rooting for the local underdog at a ballgame; on the one hand, you know that it’s like cheering for the side with the lower odds of winning, but on the other hand, it’s an old habit that you can’t quite bring yourself to forget. For me, it was Blockbuster, of all places, that fueled my passion for physical media. And for a long, long time, it was a feeling that you couldn’t replicate — the joy of visiting a store to browse the latest releases and rifle through random bargain bins for the Holy Grails of video game memorabilia. Sadly, with the surge in demand for digital media and convenient platforms with tiered subscription services, that cloud nine sensation eventually became a thing of the past. The world of physical media fizzled out, and cloud-based gaming became the norm.

There’s a silver lining to all of the above: Gamer Stop Simulator and its devotion to physical media and the world of cloud-less gaming services. In this day and age, it’s an alien concept—the idea of visiting a store to purchase secondhand video games—but in Red Axe Games’ self-contained time capsule, it’s a common occurrence. And you know what? I’m overjoyed about it. After all, who needs a subscription service when you have a local teenager who will happily sell you the same product at quadruple the price? Forget about Xbox Game Pass; it’s redundant and irrelevant. Let’s talk physical copies and steel book collector’s editions.

Where Physical Media Reigns Supreme

Gamer Stop Simulator has one objective in mind: to travel back to the time before the wheel of physical media was disgracefully reinvented, and to bathe in the little joys that came with lofty purchases. Within this primordial dream of being the Belle of the local Blockbuster is a simple business simulation game that works and operates like your traditional chore core sim. Yes, it features stock management, and yes, it features all of the usual trappings that you might find in a shovelware shopkeeping experience, including store upgrades, mini-games, and the entrepreneurial opportunities that come with the job.

Thankfully, there is more to Gamer Stop Simulator than a generic shopkeeping sim; it’s also an open-ended experience that allows you to explore quaint corridors of Japan, as well as engage in local obstacle courses, fishing mini-games, and photography. At the heart of all of this, however, is a straightforward, almost by-the-numbers rags-to-riches business affair. You can converse with customers, negotiate prices, repair items, and juggle various chores in an orderly manner to keep your business booming whilst you chase milestones. Granted, there is a little more to it than that, but you get the idea. It’s a simple setup with a great deal of the same basic stepping stones.

Believe it or not, there is a story behind all of this, too. Well, I say story, when really I’m referring to a cliche. See, it goes like this: your grandfather has left you a letter stating that, as the proud new owner of an old store, you have the opportunity to restore it to its former glory and transform it into a booming hub for physical media. And if you think you’ve heard that tale before, well that’s because you have, in almost every business simulation game ever made, period. But, that’s not an important part here, because you don’t often play business sims for the complex plots; you jump into them with the intent of building a brand and elevating its foundations to become the Belle of the business world. And as luck would have it, Gamer Stop Simulator has that opportunity to create, build and evolve.

Steel Books & Side Quests

The process of creating your ideal business is a lot like jumping through the same hoops as your typical chore sim, in that you spend the majority of your time sourcing stock, earning paychecks, and gradually expanding your business to appeal to a wider range of customers. Thankfully, it isn’t quite as dull as your bog-standard shovelware sim, in that you don’t need to pour dozens of hours into the same monotonous tasks in order to make the smallest amount of progress. Here, you have the chance to dabble in a few different activities, with each one offering its own unique challenges and rewards. The aim of the game is still in black and white, but to give credit where it’s due, it does cough up a good selection of options to keep you skirting around the painfully narrow path of entrepreneurship.

All in all there’s a pretty neat game here with some solid features and backdrops that pay homage to Japanese cityscapes and pastimes. It still brings the same basic format to the table as its adversaries, but with the inclusion of some extracurricular activities and progression hooks, customizable options and apt mini-games, it also makes for a surprisingly enjoyable and oftentimes therapeutic experience with a lot of varied gameplay elements to wire into. And, let’s not forget that, above all, it’s a nostalgic experience that just so happens to tap into a world that, sadly, a lot of us don’t tend to see all that often. There’s a few extra bonus points, right there.

Verdict

Gamer Stop Simulator delves into the beating heart of a world that, sadly, doesn’t receive the same attention as it did back in the golden age of physical media, with its familiar take on a chore core sim that brings all of the pulpy goodness and homely formats of a good old-fashioned business emulator. Don’t get me wrong, it still pulls on a lo of the same strings as your cliche-riddled business sim, but it does, however, provide a solid foundation with a ton of interesting features and thematically applicable pastimes and settings to toy around with en route to that all-important climax.

Of course, if you’re an avid fan of chores or a die-hard fan of physical media, then you’re probably going to enjoy adding your two cents to Gamer Stop Simulator for some well-needed TLC. It might not make it into your greatest hits collection, though I’d say that it’s worth the admission price, if only for the nostalgia.