There's Nothing Like a Nice, Comfy Simulator Game

I wrapped up the main story in Assassin's Creed: Origins and decided to take a glance at my Epic Games library.  I have a tendency to readily grab up any freebie games that I'm semi-interested in and then promptly forget about them.  After taking a gander, I decided to take a chance on Car Mechanic Simulator 2018.

Simulator games aren't everyone's cup o' tea--why play a game about boring real-life tasks?  Maybe I'm just weird and boring, but I find them oddly enjoyable.  I have no special interest in cars and most of my knowledge about them extends to detailed subjects like when to get the oil changed.  In Car Mechanic Simulator you are the proprietor of a tiny garage who is just trying to make a buck.  Clients call into your garage with a variety of automobile related issues.  Your job is to diagnose the problems and then fix them.  It's a pretty simple point-and-click affair and the main challenge comes from trying to be more efficient--as you gain experience you gain knowledge about what might be causing the problems and can address them more quickly (and without potentially dismantling way more stuff that you need to).  As you gain experience you also earn experience points that can be used to unlock improved diagnostic and repair abilities--you can install parts more quickly or unlock special tools that can help diagnose specific systems.  At certain points you can also unlock expansions to your garage that provide more space or improved facilities.

Periodically, special story cars will appear in your potential job queue.  Taking story jobs seems to serve to orient players with specific systems in the vehicle.  As you progress, more complex jobs appear that require you to work on the body of the car or the interior.  Each job also has a chance to provide a barn map or a crate of parts.  Barn maps unlock special locations where you can salvage parts and also choose to buy fixer-upper types of cars that require a lot of work, but have a potentially much higher resale value.

There have been a few minorly irritating factors--the tutorial at the beginning of the game is pretty useless--all it does is teach you about the tools in your garage and not anything about the vehicles or tasks you will be performing.  The in-game music is a bit much (you can choose from several different radio stations) and I would recommend turning it off.

Overall, for a game that I received for free, I'm having a pleasant time dismantling vehicles.  I haven't quite unlocked all the features and I would like to try to fully restore a car.  I feel like I've gained some minor knowledge about cars and how they work (I'm not going to be trying to take my own car apart any time soon!) and it's just nice to throw on a relaxing podcast.

If you were lucky enough to grab Car Mechanic Simulator 2018 for free, give it a whirl, it's an enjoyable simulator that's good for relaxing.  It's super cheap on Steam, only $4.59 right now (it's on sale!).