The relaxing fix ’em up Car Mechanic Simulator 2018 has added options to fancy-up cars with custom cosmetic doodads as well as fancier mechanoparts, coming in the free ‘Tuning’ DLC on Tuesday. I’ve not played a load of Car Mechanic Sim but in all my time playing Viscera Cleanup Detail, which has that similar ‘follow a physical process until something ruined becomes good’ vibe, it had never occurred to me that I might want to actually improve things too. A new career awaits as a mechanic helpfully adding undercar lighting, turbochargers, wheel spikes, and harpoons.*> (more…)
Car Mechanic Simulator 2018 [official site], the curiously zen-like, genre-defying game of hypnotic vehicular repair, is very much back on the road these days, but it was not ever thus. CMS18 launched in a rather troubled state, rife with bugs and interface peculiarities, but to the credit of both developers and players, it was rapidly and repeatedly patched, backlash was restrained and the result is an excellent game that’s rarely far from the upper reaches of the Steam best-sellers chart.
But what, exactly happened – and are the developers now confident that CMS is ship-shape? Also: what is it about this superficially car-nerds-only game that makes it so compelling to almost anyone willing to pick up a virtual wrench? (more…)