Roadside Research Review (PC)

It wouldn’t take much to pull the wool over your eyes, especially if you’re a passer-by who prefers to keep their head above the clouds and out of the eccentric aisles of a seemingly ordinary gas station. Heck, I could scribble a smiley face befitting a toddler’s pre-school homework assignment on my forehead and you still wouldn’t know that, beneath the paper bag and strip of tape, extraterrestrial intelligence roams rampant through the night. But you don’t need to concern yourself with any of this, because, frankly, if you can fill up your car with some quality gasoline and grab a snack for the open road, you won’t ever have to worry about what happens after the shutters slam down and the staff clock out. Things happen, but you don’t need to fret about it. Who’s the alien here? I am. Or, am I? Who’s asking? Are you with The Agency?

To put you in the picture, Roadside Research is a 1-4 player job simulation game in which aliens, naturally disguised as humans with hand-drawn expressions, take on the role of gas station attendants and, as if to further bolster the cliché, double agents who serve only to analyze and mentally probe the human race. As one of these peculiar lifeforms with a lack of artistic imagination and social awareness, you have the job of balancing two simple tasks: managing and upgrading a roadside gas station, and using alien tech to examine and chronicle human activity. Why a gas station, you ask? Well, why not, basically. It doesn’t explain it, but then, I also don’t think that it cares to address the elephant in the room, either.

For the most part, Roadside Research plays out like your traditional chore core simulation game. Lo and behold, you have a husk of a business, a seemingly endless list of burdensome jobs—cleaning shelves, taking stock, and serving customers, naturally—as well as a double whammy of an upgrade path, which grants you the opportunity to evolve your store, accrue more customers, and upgrade your technology to help you on your quest to understand and interpret the average human bystander. But, here’s the catch: as an alien, you don’t have the power to fool everyone in the room. To that extent, if you miscalculate your own abilities and “accidentally” break the fourth wall, then you will, at least at some point, wind up attracting the attention of The Agency and meeting a rather dismal fate that culminates in icky gloop stains. But, more on that later.

With multiplayer at the heart of Roadside Research’s absurdly high-strung experience is a co-op comedy that leans into its weaknesses and embraces the silliness of the situation with open arms and all of the ridiculous details that come with it. Sure, the initial gameplay loop is all rather predictable—manage a store, earn cash, and upgrade it to house more stock, and so on and so forth. Yet, thanks to its dual upgrade system—a branching path that also allows you to unlock and enhance your alien gadgetry, that is—the game does offer a good amount of content to shovel through. In the daytime you’re mopping up gloopy spills and blending in, remaining mindful of the fact that you’re an undercover alien who doesn’t want to get caught out. But, in the dark, you’re a ragtag bunch of mischievous avatars, plotting your strategy and preparing for the next shift. It doesn’t go much deeper than that I’ll admit, though it does offer a steady progression hook that keeps you coming back to clock in time and time again. That is, until the cracks eventually begin to appear.

Due to there being little to no consequences for being caught out, at no point are you ever made to feel that you can fail if the shift should happen to go awry. You lose some XP and a handful of research points, but that’s about it. If you make a mistake, then you essentially proceed to the next shift and take another shot at the gauntlet. That’s one issue. But then, there’s also the issue with space, lack of storage, and not to mention a litter of bugs that often make an otherwise enjoyable experience feel a little, I don’t know, wooden. Thankfully, there isn’t anything overly disastrous here. That said, there are several issues here that could do with a little extra time in the oven.

On the bright side, the developer clearly has a firm grasp on what it takes to elevate Roadside Research and bring it to the next level. With a roadmap of hot fixes and updates already in motion, it’s safe to say that there’s a strong possibility that it will iron over its flaws in the near future. And I sincerely hope that it does, too, because at the end of the day, there is a great game here. I can’t say that it’s a good single-player game, as it lacks that signature comical twist and the collaborative shenanigans that come with it. That said, for an indie co-op game that doesn’t take itself too seriously, it is a genuine delight to carve through. It’s silly — but in the best possible way.

Verdict

Although Roadside Research offers a good two-for-one gameplay experience with a humorous twist and a lot of comically enhanced extraterrestrial surprises, it also fails to deliver a seamless voyage down to earth due to its lack of consequential features and, as if to dampen the spirit, a fair few technical issues, to boot. But, this isn’t to say that it’s a bad game. On the contrary, Roadside Research can be a brilliant game, especially if you’re working alongside a group of friends who also know how to laugh at the expense of the game’s weaknesses. It isn’t a perfect single-player game I’ll admit, as its extraterrestrial shenanigans don’t quite hit the same spot given the circumstances and the general nature of the situation. Still, where it fails to capture a great solo experience, it definitely makes up for in its co-op mode. That counts for a lot, truly.