games / Reviews
PowerWash Simulator 2 (PC) Review
Image Credit: FuturLab
Loading...I’ll admit I came to PowerWash Simulator 1 a bit late. I only picked it up when it was PS+ one month and was curious. I found it to be a nice, relaxing game that could get frustrating when you are 99% of a level but can’t find the missing 1% to complete it. Well, PowerWash Simulator 2 is now here and while I question whether or not the “2” is warranted, it still offers much of the same experience as before.
PowerWash Simulator 2 places you in the boots and uniform of a Power Washer, who has their own house, van and washer to clean off all the grim and dirt from the people that need their stuff clean. It’s a hard job but someone has to spray water at dirty windows, sidewalks and roofs.
Right from the start, you’ll notice that this game is extremely similar to the last one, right down to a lot of the same equipment being used. You basically have two types of washers, one is more general/all-purpose, and the other is more powerful but has a shorter range. You eventually can unlock/buy new models, as well as buying extensions to give a sprayer longer reach or a circular nozzle or the like.
One thing they have changed is that have done away with overt types material. The old game had classifications for “metal”, “glass” and “multi-purpose” for the material you are cleaning. The sprayers used to have different, visible stats on them to show their strengths and weaknesses. The stats included surface, encrusted, stubborn, oily, etc. They are kind of there, in the background somewhat, but they aren’t visible to the player and it might just be imagining stuff. There used to also be types of grime as well, from dust to mud to mould to rust, etc. That’s also all gone. There is some different types of stuff but it mainly boils down to spray paint or “everything else”. This, I feel, is a bad move. It kind of dumbs the game down some and while it may make it easier for new people to get into, the previous version wasn’t exactly hard.
This leads into how the game handles soap. In the old game, you could buy different types of soap that would be more effective on the material you are cleaning. Metal cleaning soap on metal material, or multi-purpose soap for multi-purpose items, that sort of thing. It would pretty much instantly clean off whatever object you were spraying with, but you had to watch how many bottles of cleaner you had left, because it would go down very quickly. That’s all gone here.
Instead, soap is kind of a rechargeable foam that you spray on something, then you swap to a sprayer nozzle to clean something. It never seems to run out so you don’t need to buy different cleaners or anything. However, I should note, I did run into some odd bugs here. Occasionally, if I sprayed an object with soap, it would vanish within like 4 or 5 seconds. I would have to quickly swap to a nozzle and spray it off before it dissipated. I’m not sure what caused the bug but initially I thought it was actually purposeful, before digging into it more and finding this wasn’t normal.
The biggest surface level change in PWS 2 is an addition of a circular washer/sprayer called the “Swirlforce Surf Ace”. This lets you cut down on dirt with a more down-force method rather than the other sprayers. You primarily use it for the ground, almost like a floor buffer or something, but you can use it on the walls or other closer range, large objects. Again, this isn’t handled that well in the game. For one, it feels just kind of clunky and awkward to use. On the ground it is more or less fine but you have to go a bit slowly, otherwise you’ll start missing spots. It is clunky to use on a wall or vertical surface. More to the point, unlike with the other two sprayers, which have three upgrades a piece, there is only one “Surf Ace” to buy. It has two slightly bigger heads, and two extension arms but you can’t really use them because of how the thing works.
I should note there are a large amount of cosmetics you can buy in the game with in-game points. When you complete jobs you get money and “Power Wash Points”. You use the money to buy actual new gear for your business, new sprayers and nozzles. You can sell back the older stuff to gain some money, if you need it. You use the Power Wash Points to buy cosmetics. You can buy different skins for your washer, masks, overalls, gloves and boots. There are also van paint jobs for you to buy, if you so wash. There is also an option for “Washer Cosmetics” but there isn’t actually in here to buy? At least not that I can tell, at any rate, though it might come later. Lastly, you can use points to buy stuff from the Furniture Catalog for your Home Base.
This “Home Base” thing is one of the more bewildering things about the game. It’s basically a loft/garage area for you to explore, and you can buy stuff to decorate the space. So, if you want to buy an Acoustic Guitar or Whimsical Rug, you are free to do so, then you can clean it and place it in the space. I have to ask the obvious, if dumb, question though: WHO ASKED FOR THIS?! Like, seriously, most of the stuff is fairly generic in the first place. More to the point, is there ever a point where one goes “You know, I just need to hang out in my cleaning office with my occasionally meowing cats and not actually play the game.”? It’s like the game is trying to be Animal Crossing or have some decorative system that is completely unneeded.
The other two, smaller, innovations come when you are cleaning. They added a scissor lift in the game, which you can raise and lower to get up higher. It’s a bit slow and I kind of wish there was an option to warp up top, if it’s high from the ground, but that is me. The other piece of gear is the “Abseiling Swing”. This is a more specialized equipment that you can set up to go up and down high surfaces, in a bit of a vertical harness. It’s mean for going up or down quickly but it has very limited movement for left and right and also can only be used on limited surfaces and levels. Of the 18 levels I played for the review, the scissor lift was probably in 7 or 8, while the Abseiling Swing was in two.
Levels in this game are generally bigger than in the past game with a couple stages becoming bigger as they go on. One, in particular, kind of rises out from the ground as you clean it, being a multi-stage level, where you first clean the roof, then the outside, then the inside of a disgusting bathroom. There is a bit of an awkward imbalance in the game where you come across some “early” levels that are almost too large to take in. I’m talking about spending an hour or so, just on some levels and that can take it out of you. There are the occasional “smaller” levels, where you just have to clean a mobility scooter or “Dog Car”, which are more fun to me. I think they took the approach of “Bigger is better”, which can be valid in a lot of cases, but smaller, more bite-sized levels are still fun.
Three last things I’ll mention before closing this out. The first is that there returns the ability to highlight dirt on objects, this is, of course, helpful. More to the point though, when you get to 99% of a level, with only two or three things left to clean, the game will set way points for the specific objects you need to clean off. This is a very welcome thing because it makes it easier for you to finish a level, and you don’t have to spend 20 minutes trying to find the one window you missed by accident, or something.
The second thing is, the game has both split screen local co-op and four player online co-op. I can’t judge on either front, I don’t have anyone local to play with and I’m playing the game before release and without anyone playing online. I assume both systems will be fine, though.
Lastly, I kind of wish this game had gone in a different direction. As it is now, it’s kind of a glorified expansion pack. The new features are decent, but it’s not breaking the mold or adding a ton of new stuff. How amazing could this game have been if it had Steam Workshop, or some type of creator system, where players could make their own objects or levels? I obviously get why they don’t do that, they make a fair amount of money on DLC, but it would have been so neat to see what the community could come up with.
