You Suck at Parking: Complete Edition Review (Xbox Series X|S & PC)

You Suck at Parking is the digitalized incarnation of a child’s post-kindergarten plaything—a pointless game that combines vehicular-based dopamine and make-believe Michael Bay-esque action sequences to create a nonsensical, irritatingly more-ish soapbox precision platformer that you’ll either love or you’ll hate.

To be honest, the devil is in the details with this one. It’s a game about parking a car — how difficult could it be? Eh, quite, as it turns out. Well, it isn’t as tough or as complicated as parallel parking a jumbo jet in a back alley — but it is, annoyingly, a thorn in the side, as well as a game that will likely make you loathe the thought of retaking your practical test. But that’s sort of the point that it wants to make: You Suck at Parking, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

As the title blatantly states, You Suck at Parking is all about, well, parking a car. Though, this isn’t a serious game that you would typically lean on to compliment frequent lectures on roadside theory; it’s a comical turbo-fueled excursion in which simple tasks are made to feel unnecessarily complex, and a flick of the wrist is often capable of destroying the world and all of its parking spaces. For lack of a better description, it’s the polar opposite of Driving School Simulator, and it doesn’t pretend to be anything else.

Of course, parking should be made to feel relatively easy. In You Suck at Parking, though, it’s a little more complicated. Given that each of its stages require you to not only park an erratic vehicle at ludicrously high speeds, but to complete the journey in one maneuver, you don’t have a hand-holding lesson here; you have a rigorous training exercise that involves calculated risks, precise timing, and a lot of trial and error. And to think, this is a game about parking a vehicle. It shouldn’t be difficult, but it is. All you can do about it is laugh and find joy in the small victories.

While I wouldn’t call You Suck at Parking a classic rage-baiting platforming game, it is a game that has the power to tug a few heartstrings. It isn’t the goal that’s a nuisance; it’s the simple fact that you have little to no control of your vehicle, and that you have to park in an allocated area in one swift maneuver. If you fail to execute the maneuver in an orderly way, then you are tasked with starting from scratch and, well, repeating the same mistake. And to be honest, that’s how most of You Suck at Parking plays out. It’s irritating, unforgiving, and yet, above all, a lot of fun to blitz through.

Sadly, You Suck at Parking isn’t a drag race; it’s an obstacle course—a Total Wipeout-like mini-game in which dioramas are spawned with copious amounts of inconveniently placed objects, and roads are filled with more twists and turns than a hopscotch trail. As the driver in this world, you don’t need to accelerate and test the limits of your throttle. Rather, you slink and slide through each biome like an oily snake in a matchbox car, and you crash and burn over a parking bay. It isn’t a graceful sight, and it definitely isn’t as stylish as you want it to be. But that’s parking, in a nutshell, I guess.

Driving is one of the fixtures that fortifies these walls — fuel and time, on the other hand, are two pillars that can either stabilize your journey or bring it to a sudden halt. See, while the objective of the game is to snake through various obstacles and locate a parking spot, you are also required to keep your eyes on a fuel gauge and a countdown timer. If you exhaust your fuel tank or run out of time, then you must restart from the beginning, naturally.

Of course, with there being enough stages to keep the pedal to the metal, so to speak, you shouldn’t struggle to get your kicks out of You Suck at Parking. Although it is a predictable game that never really changes its trajectory to keep you on your toes, it does offer a solid variety of tracks and obstacles for you to chomp through. It can be humorous, as can it be satisfying. But more often than not, it can feel like a nice change of pace—a well-needed break to help you untangle yourself from the hustle and bustle of alternate sims. I’m all for that.

All in all there’s a surprisingly creative matchbox-like racing game here that is more than likely going to appeal to the target demographic. It might not do a lot more than what others have already accomplished in the physics-based platforming field, though it does come clean with its own distinguishable identity and original dioramas. Moreover, it’s a lot of fun to romp through, even though it can feel like a bit of a pain in the backside at times. But, again, that’s all part of the journey. It’s whether or not you have the patience to stick it out for the long haul, that’s the deciding factor.

Verdict

You Suck at Parking: Complete Edition fulfills its duty to deliver a definitive matchbox-like experience to fledgling parking attendants and rampaging stunt drivers alike. Combined with its online inclusivity and generous host of creative dioramas, it certainly brings everything it advertises on the tin to the forefront of the parking lot. It might not offer a lot more outside of that, but given that it doesn’t pretend to be something that it’s not, a lack of variety is to be expected here.

To echo, You Suck at Parking is good for a ten-second burnout session, but not a lot else. As a single-player game, it has the power to exhume a giggle and the odd headache. And, when all’s said and done, that’s sort of what you’re paying for here: a giggle and a headache. If you’re looking for something that will fuel your ego and make you feel competent, then you might want to consider pulling up to a different lot to stretch your legs. Unfortunately, there are no winners when it comes to parking a car. Go figure.