Car Mechanic Simulator 2018 is a game developed by Red Dot Games, an indie game studio that found success in creating mechanic simulators. This isn’t their first nor their last game but it’s definitely the most successful.
In a recent attempt to promote their new sim that’s coming out this year, they’ve decided to make CMS 2018 free for 24 hours. A clever move that brought them millions of new players and in the process they’ve managed to break their all-time player peak record by almost 300%. Whoever came up with this idea deserves a raise and huge bonus.
As for me? I wouldn’t call myself a car enthusiast but lets say I watched my fair share of Top Gear and Grand Tour back in the day. In the last couple of years despite my lack of knowledge I found myself watching Mat Armstrong rebuilding various cars on Youtube.
On top of all that, from my wife’s side there’s 3 generations of mechanics who own a workshop where they fix cars from early morning to late in the night. On top of fixing local cars, they tend to restore cars. The amount of work that goes into that is absolutely astonishing. I have nothing but utmost respect for mechanics.
I’m fully aware of my strengths and weaknesses, and while my vanity believes I could do something like that, my logical brain knows that I can’t. Playing this simulator is the closest I’ll ever get to fixing cars and I’m completely okay with that. So here are my thoughts about it:
Gameplay
Unfortunately, I have to start with the most negative thing about this game, which is the tutorial. It might just be me but damn that was a hell to get through. You start at the fully expanded garage with two cars (one in good shape and the other in bad) and you have to go through certain things, learn about tools, and fix a few parts.
I went for the worst looking car and in the process of finding what I was supposed to fix, I took the whole car apart. On top of that, I still couldn’t figure out what to do because the tutorial isn’t very helpful. Especially for someone like me who is an absolute noob.
Somehow I managed to complete the tutorial and I was off to my own small garage with limited tools at my disposal. I was ready to fix cars but there were none at the garage. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out what I was supposed to do. What happened there was that either I missed in the tutorial that I was supposed to go to the phone to accept a new job or they didn’t show that part at all. But I got over that obstacle eventually.
The game became much more interesting after the initial hurdle. I started fixing cars, getting new tools and perks and soon enough I had enough money to get a car from the barn. The mistake I made is that I should have saved more money initially in order to be able to afford to fix it.
Things pretty much snowballed from there. The next thing you know I was frequenting auctions to see if there is something interesting that I can afford. The grind is real, I must admit. I’ve enjoyed fixing cars but collecting money, not so much.
Which led to me switching to a sandbox mode where I would have unlimited money and max level. This changed the game for me completely, and it wasn’t that hard anymore. It turned into a cozy game where I can relax whenever I feel like it. I absolutely recommend playing in sandbox mode if you want a relaxing time when playing the Car Mechanic Simulator 2018.
Conclusion
I absolutely enjoyed fixing and restoring cars in Car Mechanic Simulator 2018. The amount of work that gets put into fixing cars is astonishing. In real life it’s even more complicated and time/energy consuming. People who do this full time are legends and absolutely deserve an award for it.
This is the closest I’ll get to experiencing it. You can count on me playing the newest instalment once it gets released. Have you ever played it? Was the tutorial as confusing to you as it was to me? Should I try to be a real mechanic for a day? Make sure to let me know in the comment section.
