‣ 7/10 – Has more players than PayDay 3.

‣ Thoughts: This game is like a coin with two sides, one being bad and the other good. While playing you are constantly flipping the coin and based on what lands you either have a great, nice experience or just a complete mess. Some bugs and glitches are so common that instead of being patched the developer included a tool that resets the problem, and you are left praying it doesn’t repeat itself.

Throughout my playthrough I have encountered many glitches of various kinds, some were connected to whacky physics others simply broke the game, some removed entire layers of paint applied to the station etc. But the worst one that almost made me quit was a progression glitch that simply locked me out of doing anything new and left me stuck at a rough 75% game completion status. It happened because of a new patch introducing an entire new DLC, thankfully it was fixed quick, and I could continue doing main story missions, sadly that only happened after I’ve replayed the entire run which was a waste of 9 hours. So, the game almost ended there with a horribly negative review, but things changed, and I pushed through. Without that, I could name plenty more bugs, but none of them interrupted my playthrough anymore so it is up to the player on how tolerable the game can be with so much polish missing.

Asides the point the game is obviously a mess it is actually one of the best simulator titles I’ve tried. It has a great gameplay loop, and it keeps expanding the way you’d hope, giving you more tools to use and categories to manage. Surprisingly it all functions quite well and rarely are there problems when it comes to making money. Even though I felt addicted to this game for a week I doubt it has enough meat on its bone for player to keep nibbling after you get the last upgrade with that said there is now an entirely new place the game takes part in, so if anyone wants to keep going, they surely can.

Overall, Gas Station Simulator is definitely one of the stronger titles in its genre and has plenty of interesting gameplay loops that will keep players engaged. It is only limited by its looks and overall bugs and glitches.

Cutting to the chase, this game is a masterclass in how to keep a player engaged in the genre of job simulator type games. It doesn't rely on a pointless hunger and health meter to keep you always acutely aware of your actions and time management, but instead it offers a multitude of minigames that cover a variety of services the gas station provides; all of which handled by you until you can afford to hire on employees. Each minigame is enjoyable in its own right, though sometimes challenging initially, and offers a spice of variety to the core gameplay loop that most games will half-heartedly attempt or fail to implement at all.

It continues to build on itself as the business expands until the very end, at which point you can have automation take over and mostly worry about stocking shelves and adjusting decor. I will say the end-game is, at this point, the biggest slog of the game, especially as the push for the max popularity increases the requisites exponentially, but the journey for the first three quarters of the game is surprisingly entertaining and charming. I went in expecting another unity asset flip game but this seems to genuinely be a game the dev took a great deal of care in creating, and I found myself responding in kind in my motivation to complete the title.

Also the story was surprisingly fun, though there's naturally not a whole lot to pick apart there.

This one is actually surprisingly game-like, and fun, for one of these light work sim type games. You do more than just cleaning junk! You also run the gas pumps, perform mechanic work in the garage, keep your store stocked, organize deliveries and so on. In short, I guess, you run a gas station and this game is a proper videogame on a level pretty far above most of these overly simplistic work sims. It's not comparable to the very best games in this genre, but offers a lot more than average, and it's a pretty fun, satisfying and silly little gaming experience for a solid 5-10 hours.

However; that's when you realize that while this game has a surprisingly high amount and quality of content for a game like this, it's still a pretty simplistic work sim that can't quite scratch that itch that a deeper and more satisfying game can, and you begin to get bored with running the same tasks over and over with no variation. It doesn't help that the game has a serious glitch with the delivery trucks that appears to be present in all versions and on all platforms, and still hasn't been fixed quite some time after release. Now, the developers are smarter than most work sim type developers and have put in a reset button that fixes issues like this, which is very nicely done, but even though the developers have done their best to fix ita nd their workaround is perfectly acceptable, it still gets old that you have to be paranoid about every delivery. Am I going to get my spare tyres this time, or do I have to reset yet again, for like the 150th time this session?

So, in summary, this game will deliver if you're experienced with this type of game and want something a little more, but it absolutely will not satisfy if you're coming from the hardcore industrial/work sim world like, I don't know, Factorio. Get it cheap on sale for a simple weekend of running a gas station and don't expect much more than that.

I originally complained about a game breaking bug where cars would get permanently stuck. I then found out you can reset all of the cars, which caused me to return to the game and actually have fun! I then discovered there is an ACTUAL game breaking issue: this game has a memory leak, meaning if you don't reset your gas station daily, your memory will fill beyond Unreal engine's limits and the game will crash and possibly be un-launchable. This game has been abandoned by its developer, so if you want this game, don't buy it.