Has anyone ever really dreamed about becoming a car mechanic? Now don't get me wrong, some of the mechanics out there do an amazing job, but come on you can't tell me that when these people were 7 years old that’s all they wanted to be? Well now you are in luck as Red Dot Games has released the 2015 version of Car Mechanic Simulator and from my initial play these guys really know their cars!

 

So first thing I have to say is that I have next to zero knowledge of cars, I could maybe change a tire but that’s as advanced as I could get. I just hate getting my hands all dirty and covered in grease, but thanks to this game I can lean what to do and how to do it. I will say this game came as a little bit of a shock as I really thought it was going to be one of those cheaply made and poorly put together simulation games that seem to be all over the place at the moment.

 

But, wow, the graphics look great and thanks to some snazzy effects, you can get right into the depths of the car totally stripping everything until you are left with an engine on the floor.

 

The game starts and eases you into the world of a mechanic and the first job is to change a spark plug, and although the next few jobs are supposedly easy to accomplish, I had to have my phone next to me to google where certain parts of the car were located. That really helped me out. If my phone was not there I'm not sure if I could have even fixed the second job that I was assigned to complete.

 

So next I have to mention the sound and here the game is good but nothing stands out. When you are stripping down the car to get to the broken part to replace you don't even notice the music or sound F/X to be honest.

 

The car models are very detailed and I honestly do feel this would be an amazing training aid if you were looking to get your hands dirty and actually become a mechanic. This is no joke; the detail in this simulation is quite staggering, it beggars belief.

 

But we must mention the one part of this game that really needs some work and that’s the tutorial as you can only see what needs to be done on the car by walking up to it and then pressing the “O” keyboard button and this was not explained in the tutorial. As you might guess, it’s a very important part of the game.

 

The game plays very smoothly and if I’m being totally honest, all you do is take part off, put part on, swap broken part, buy new part with what looks like a PC from around 1996. This core loop of mechanics all feel great and never become tiring. Also, when you have the car in hundreds of small tiny pieces on the garage floor the game will highlight what part goes next and you can't put things in the wrong order, and that’s a clever system that helps people like me that has no idea what a “rear swing bar” is.

 

Car Mechanic Simulator 2015 has a heaving pile of content and you may grow tired of the core gameplay before completing the game itself but at £15 this is one of the best priced games I've seen in a very long time. And with constant updates via DLC, this is a game that will keep giving and giving. The last thing I'll say in this review is that I would give anything for the developer to get hold of say the Fast ‘N’ Loud licence as this would be a great concept try and buy an old wreck of a car do this up and try and sell for profit .Come on, you know that would be amazing!