LifeisXbox’s Rover Mechanic Simulator review | One… Small step for Mankind, one… Giant leap for Simulator games. Yes, ladies and gents! Since we are closing in on the end of the year, one gaming genre has become fairly dominant in the game-o-sphere. The Simulation genre. One of the most popular to date is Power Wash Simulator! Heck, even I’ve dabbled in a few of these with some being great, others? Meeeh, not that much. But that doesn’t mean that most of them weren’t worth a try though. The simulation genre is a weird one. I can’t seem to fully grasp the reason why these are growing in popularity, but one of my theories is that they scratch that “itch” at the back of your head. That itch to perform something that otherwise would be impossible for you to do. And that brings me to this current game, Rover Mechanic Simulator. Brought to us by Pyramid Games, Rover Mechanic Simulator puts us with our boots on the ground… On Mars! It is your task to repair, what seems to be an endless slew of, rovers. Clean the dirty parts, assemble new components or rewire broken gizmos. Are you up to this stellar task? Let’s quickly find out in this review of, Rover Mechanic Simulator.
This is a short review, our usual the good, mixed and the bad was difficult because of the nature of this game. We played Rover Mechanic Simulator for 5 hours on ‘platform’. This game is also available on Playstation, PC and Switch.
Rover Mechanic Simulator is everything it
Rover Mechanic Simulator is everything it promises to be but doesn’t give you anything extra for the effort. Let me explain. Visually it’s not a high-flyer, nor is it a drab-looking game. It did what the graphical engine was told to do. The shadows are flat, and the pixels have edges. While this doesn’t mean that the overall look is bad, I wouldn’t recommend this game to anyone looking for an outstanding game either. Expect texture pops and edges that look a bit more jagged than they should be allowed to look. On the audio department, you actually won’t find much amusement either. There is an in-game radio that allows you to play a few songs on a loop though. But think that you’ll have access to this one from the get-go. You see, the radio? Is broken. And it is up to you to fix it… Given that you proceed with the game’s tutorials first. The required tool-set only unlocks after completing a few missions. So that means, a whole lot of meaningful nothings will be whispered in your ears in the meanwhile. My best advice? Play your music in the background, like, from your phone or something. Other than music, the overall sound effects are as plain as can be. Some tinks, whirrs, and buzzes. And that’s almost everything about it. Gameplay? Well… You accept your missions from the request queue. Most of these give you an option to do it on normal mode, or expert. The difference is the amount of XP you gain as well as the reward when you complete it, and of course a timer. If you choose Expert you’ll have to complete your repair within a set time limit. Fail? and you’ll lose experience. Demoting you if you fail too many. The credits are also important because they are used to buy parts from the 3D printer to complete your repairs.
Some of the broken elements can be broken apart further to do an in-depth repair. It’s here where you can choose to either, A, buy the entire element as a whole costing you more money but winning you quite a bit of time. Or B, break the element down and replace it with the broken component. Costing you less, but will take you a heck of a lot more time. What did I do when I saw that the element was going to take too much time? Was buying the entire thing anew, completing my mission, and then repairing the other element so that when the next mission comes along requesting that same one? I could just hot-swap it and complete the mission in under 30 seconds. You don’t get a time bonus, but it did make me feel like a real-life Mars Chad!
Other than this? The game feels like a repetitive cookie-cutter game that is nice for a quick repair or two. But quickly becomes bland. Truly a game for the hardcore fans in my honest opinion…
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