A game with a solid premise and really fun gameplay loop brought way down by some of the most insipid writing I think I've ever experienced. Does the writing matter in a job sim game? No, but the writing is so shit that I couldn't just ignore it, and it also effects the gameplay.
In gas station simulator, every now and then something weird will happen. A customer comes in and just drops a fish on the ground and leaves. It's cool, it's fun, and most importantly it's infrequent enough that you don't expect it. In barn finders, you explore 1 regular barn without anything paranormal happening in the entire game. There is not a single normal ass barn outside of the tutorial. I was actually so bored of aliens by the end of the game that when I saw a level called "Logging Barn" I got excited because it was a genuine surprise that the game would take me to someplace without a crazy conspiracy or ghosts or some other shit. Of course that level turned out to be mostly a 'hidden' alien mothership that had fuckall to do in it.
Outside of the writing bombarding you with weird shit until it's not even surprising anymore, it's also painfully unfunny. How about a fart sound every time you crouch? How about every level having a toilet that you can take a shit in? How about finding golden toilet paper as collectibles? How about some very very questionable characters that aren't quite racist caricatures enough that I stopped playing but are enough to make me grit my teeth whenever they showed up on screen? Like they're not "Jesus Christ I'm refunding this" bad but are bad enough that multiple high rated steam reviews mentioned them and you know it's a problem when even steam users agree that it's not a good look.
Frustrating game. If you're out of job sims to play with a podcast on it can scratch the itch, but I don't really think the genre is sparse enough that you need to dig through the bargain bin.

Reviewed on Jan 03, 2024


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