Car Detailing Simulator – Review

We’ve been on a bit of a simulator binge lately, playing Furnish Master and Lawn Mowing Simulator, and we’re continuing our streak with Car Detailing Simulator. It’s another backlog situation, as the game actually debuted on the Switch last summer, and the PC version even dates back to 2021. Still, it’s not because a game is “older” -a relative term- that it doesn’t deserve our attention, or yours for that matter. Whether you’ve been eyeing up the game for a while or have never heard of it until now, join us as we take an in-depth look at Ultimate Games’ Switch port of 100Games’ Car Detailing Simulator.

Story

Unlike many straightforward games in the genre, Car Detailing Simulator actually has a story. At least, we think it does, because it’s quite difficult to make sense of it. Our “story’ is told through a motion comic and starts with an award show where the car detailer of the year is elected. The winner then passes on his trophy to whom we assume is the player character, and after said character’s phone falls out of his pocket, we cut to Car Detailing Simulator’s tutorial. The phone has no bearing on the story, but it’s there to show you how to interact with objects, as your first task is to pick it up again. We’ll get into the nitty gritty of how everything works in the gameplay section of this review. For now, what’s important is that upon completing the tutorial, the garage you work at is destroyed in a flood, and the game takes you to your very own garage instead. From this humble, and frankly quite derelict, piece of infrastructure, you’ll try to step into the shoes of your mentor and claim the title of car detailer of the year for yourself, we assume.

Graphics

If you thought that the visual downgrade of Lawn Mowing Simulator on Nintendo’s Switch was bad, then you’re not going to like what happened here. From what we can gather, the PC version of Car Detailing Simulator looks absolutely stunning. The Switch version… not so much. Many of the small details that add life and realism to the PC version were outright removed here. From water droplets not remaining on car hoods after washing them to the lack of texture details on the tools you’re using, the Switch port of the game simply looks bad. Adding insult to injury is that when you’re cleaning the dirt off a car, any remaining bits can be highlighted as a red overlay… which is all fine and dandy until you’re cleaning a red car and are unable to see the dirt flecks. It would have helped had these been overlayed in a different color on red cars. Now, had the aforementioned visual sacrifices been made for the sake of performance, we would have forgiven the developers, but this isn’t the case, and stutter is still a common occurrence.

Sound

There are two possible logical routes that 100Games could have taken with Car Detailing Simulator’s soundtrack. Either pay homage to the legendary reality show Pimp my Ride and go for hip hop music, or stick with the Americana angle and opt for country and rock instead. They went for the latter option, which is fitting. That said, the music sounds awfully generic and is lacking in variety. Fortunately, one of the few things you can actually do in the game’s settings is to turn off the music entirely so you can listen to your own tunes while working on cars, without missing out on the sound effects of your tools. These are actually pretty good by comparison, adding some realism to the tasks at hand.

Gameplay

Fixing up ramshackle cars might sound like a job for Xzibit, but Car Detailing Simulator feels more like PowerWash Simulator than it does like Pimp My Ride. As you’d expect from a game like this, the title covers everything, and the gameplay loop is incredibly to the point. You’ll receive an email from a client with a request about their car, perform said task, and earn experience points and money. This can then be reinvested in your budding car maintenance empire, allowing you to expand into bigger and better garages and showrooms, as well as adding new tools to your arsenal. Eventually, you’ll unlock the ability to buy wrecked cars at an auction site, restore them to their former glory, and sell them on for huge profit. There is more variety here than in Lawn Mowing Simulator, as cleaning dust off a car that looks like it spent weeks in the desert isn’t exactly the same as refreshing a car’s interior. This approach keeps things fresh and prevents the game from becoming too monotonous.

While Car Detailing Simulator sounds good in theory, we have to address the elephant in the room: the Switch port isn’t a very good one. Now, we’re not sure how the game plays on Xbox, but the Switch version suffers from very clunky controls. We couldn’t help but shake the feeling that this is a game that was designed to be played with a mouse and keyboard instead, and that was retrofitted to controllers. It’s not that Car Detailing Simulator is unplayable in the slightest on Nintendo’s hybrid handheld, but using tools feels unnecessarily slow and tedious. Car Detailing Simulator would have been a prime candidate for touch controls or motion controls, but Ultimate Games decided that implementing these wasn’t worth the investment, resulting in a missed opportunity. To make matters worse, the game’s loading times are excessively long and the loading screen pops up even when you’re simply navigating the game’s menus. The final nail in Car Detailing Simulator’s Switch coffin is that moving the camera in-game feels counterintuitive, and you’re unable to change this in the settings. It would have helped had it been possible to invert the game’s XY axis.

Given that Car Detailing Simulator has been out for quite some time at this point, and that the titles that Ultimate Games brings to the Switch don’t exactly have a good track record when it comes to updates, we don’t have any hopes that our gripes with Car Detailing Simulator will be fixed. That’s a shame, because Car Detailing Simulator isn’t a bad game for what it wants to be. It’s just that the Switch port isn’t very good. Fortunately, there is a better version of Car Detailing Simulator out there on Steam, so if you’re looking to detail virtual cars for yourself, you can simply get the PC version and call it a day.

Conclusion

Note that our score specifically reflects the Switch port of Car Detailing Simulator. There is some merit to the gameplay, but this doesn’t shine through enough in this version of the game. If you’re interested in picking up Car Detailing Simulator, we highly recommend going for the PC version instead, although the Xbox version might be adequate as well. The Switch port of the game doesn’t just suffer from a visual downgrade, but the performance doesn’t live up to expectations either, with lengthy load times to boot. Add to this that controls are clunky and awkward, and that the developer missed out on incorporating the Switch’s unique features, and you’ve got a version that is inferior to its siblings in every way.

SebastiaanRaats

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