Used Car Simulator Review (PC)

Speaking from a mechanical engineering perspective, DreamWay Games’ Used Car Simulator isn’t quite as perplexing as Pacific Drive, which is a sigh of relief for some of us ne’er-do-wells. It isn’t quite as demanding, either, as it doesn’t make a habit of drip feeding you oil, water, and spare parts in the hopes that you’ll venture out of your comfort zone to find something to keep your engine intact. In fact, it makes the actual process of building scrap vehicles and joyriding a lot more enjoyable. Granted, it doesn’t offer much of a compelling narrative, but it does, however, provide a pretty solid open-world locale for you to scoot around in in the makeshift junk heaps that you forge back at your garage. Is this enough to warrant a few hours of play? Eh, yes and no, but we’ll need to dial it back a bit first.

If you’re curious to know what Used Car Simulator is, then you needn’t look any further than the common chore-centric simulator. Aside from it being in receipt of a different vessel, the game is, in short, a mechanic-based emulation of its kin. But don’t let that fool you into thinking that it is a predictable clone; its pockets go a little deeper than that. And it all begins with a bar, a woman in a red dress, and a lukewarm promise that, with the right amount of cash under your belt, you will have the opportunity to conquer a dilapidated city in rain, sleet or sunshine, be it in a stolen car or a beat up piece or garbage with its rear bumper grating along the asphalt.

Secondhand Sales

In Used Car Simulator, you have a few objectives to accomplish, with the first one being to negotiate the cost of an old vehicle, and then install secondhand car parts before flipping it for a profit. That’s the easy part, and the task that you find yourself doing more than anything else in this seemingly vacant city. But, as with any business simulation game that fosters an open-world sandbox, there’s a little more to this gig than meets the eye. In addition to shifting old junkers, you also have the job of roaming the inner boroughs of an abandoned city after hours, and using your questionable skills to either acquire new parts by some sort of illegal means, and then competing in various activities, such as stunt jumps, drift trials, and even the occasional police chase.

As it turns out, the role you adopt in the game isn’t what you would call legitimate. Of course, you can obtain the parts needed to repair a vehicle in a fair and reasonable manner, though it is an optional step, funnily enough. With certain tools at your disposal, you can also smash your way into cars, collect parts, and essentially slap a bit of wood glue on a highlighted  area to create the illusion that, well, it still works. To that end, players can lie, steal, and pretty much cheat their way to the apex of secondhand glory and wealth. And the best part is, nobody could care less if you’re a truthful salesperson or a snide jerk who would soon rather flatten their grandmother in a junkyard truck than miss out on a chance to accrue a few dollars to fund their back alley empire.

I Fought the Law…

At the core of Used Car Simulator is a simple recipe: visit potential car dealers; haggle over the price; make the necessary adjustments to the shell of the vehicle; sell it for an absurd amount of cash; and then clock out after the day’s done to engage in a few illegal jobs, such as driving at excess speed to avoid police officers, competing against other players in a drifting race for a spot on the online leaderboards, and trying your hand at a series of mini-games, which often involves tasks like hot-wiring an abandoned car, or carrying out general maintenance work in your shed. With all of this in tow, Used Car Simulator claims a foundation that is not only bursting at the seams with things to do, but a surprisingly hefty amount of customizable options to consider both inside and out of the nine-to-five duties.

For a game that doesn’t have much of a story, there is a surprising amount of depth here. Okay, so it doesn’t do a great deal of justice to the NPCs or the AI, but it does manage to supplement these shoddy components with a physics-based sandbox that’s oddly satisfying to bolt around in. I can’t exactly speak highly of the visual aspect of the game, mind you. For the most part, it’s generates an incredibly mismatched, almost nonsensical plot of land that bears no real value or landmarks of any form of historical significance. But that isn’t what it strives to bring to the table here; instead, it opts to replace a compelling setting with a destructible sandbox that is teeming with explosive set pieces and illogical design elements.

Verdict

Used Car Simulator is as chaotically bonkers as it is nonsensical. Admittedly, it does come with a few loose nuts and bolts, but given that it centers its entire existence around destructive components and a whole lot of intentionally shoddy design features, it’s also relatively easy to gloss over the lack of polish and just roll with the punches. And there are numerous ways to pluck the goodies from this particular vehicle, too, with the addition of open-world quests, challenges, and engineering options providing a lot more meat for you to scrape from the usual bone, so to speak.

While the game is far from perfect, let alone complete, it does offer a lot of comical moments and challenges for you to explore and unlock over a relatively sizable campaign. Moreover, the fact that DreamWay Games is also working to bring even more content to the mix in future patches is something else that we ought to look forward to as well. Here’s hoping, then, that with a little more time in the oven and some elbow grease to boot, that used vessel will amount to something a lot greater.