Previously, InReview took a look at Aesir Interactive’s Police Simulator: Patrol Officers, a game which put the player in the shoes of a police officer. Today, we steer towards the cleaning industry with Power Wash Simulator. With the recent SpongeBob Squarepants DLC addition, the latter is theoretically more accessible courtesy of the kid’s friendly inclusion. Prior to that, the game had welcomed in Final Fantasy’s Midgar. In both DLCs, iconic locations in both worlds are used.

If Police Simulator was labeled “the most niche game of all time,” how does Power Wash Simulator stand up? In truth, the only thing in this game genuinely ‘washed’ would be the game itself. Let’s have a look at what this game does well.

Easy (albeit monotonous) achievements

If you can actually manage to drag yourself through a single playthrough of the base game, it will prove to be an easy way to earn trophies or achievements, depending on your platform. At least the game rewards you for the time spent in some way.

Multiplayer

There is realistically no way that the average gamer would dare subject themselves to this game played alone. Because of this, it’s fortunate that the game seamlessly worked co-op in to correct this. The haptic feedback from spraying one another with the cleaning device is quite amusing, and you can clear jobs faster together than alone. It’s a shame that only the host can earn achievements or trophies for jobs done.

DLC

For as dull and lifeless as the base game is, the DLC injects a tiny amount of fresh air into the experience. It is quite amusing cleaning the Invisible Boatmobile, the Krusty Krab and the Mermalair. It’s also quite entertaining heading to a completely different universe within Final Fantasy’s Midgard. The stark contrast between SpongeBob Squarepants and the former suggests this game could theoretically bring in any third party IP. As players generally tend to like crossovers, this is at least some reason to come back to this game every now and again, if you can handle the stale gameplay.

Overall, this game is just not fundamentally well put together. Let’s talk about why.

Lack of actual simulation

Juxtaposed to our police simulator game mentioned early on, this game offers no value of any significant kind. In Police Simulator: Patrol Officers, the player could at least learn or put their knowledge of the law to use. They were punished for making mistakes just as they were rewarded for doing the right thing, and the game did a really good job showcasing many nuances of being a police officer. Here, gameplay stops and ends from a first-person perspective where the player does nothing but hoses down whatever is in front of them. You get ‘paid’ for jobs, but the money never amounts to anything in the end and serves as a meaningless ‘score’ of sorts.

The DLC

But wait, the DLC showed up in the pros to this game, you say? Well, that was mostly my best effort at cherrypicking anything good to say about this video game. Sure, the DLC is somewhat pleasant aesthetically and it is fairly novel, but that’s all it has to offer. It absolutely smells of a cash grab, as little effort, even less than the base game, was placed into the actual gameplay of the DLC. The SpongeBob Squarepants levels have decent enough aesthetics, but no soundtrack whatsoever for some reason. The Final Fantasy DLC looks rather grainy, even when the player ‘cleans’ it. There is no replayability to the DLC whatsoever, as novelty quickly wears off when the player has to spend upwards of an hour and a half combing up and down every tiny little splotch on the Mermalair computer or the giant sign next to the Krusty Krab.

Lengthy jobs

As alluded to previously, jobs in this game can take a long time. It is very easy to miss tiny dirty spots in the corners or crevices of various objects or structures. Is this the immersive value the game was supposed to offer? If so, fair enough, but the jobs should have very much been reduced in length. The novelty of the DLC is harder to appreciate, and any hope of replay value is dashed, when a single job can take an hour or more to finish. The gameplay doesn’t even come close to holding up for that long.

Clearly, you are better suited spending the $29.99 that this game requires doing just about anything else. It may be more fruitful to spend that money on a hospital bill after bashing your face against the wall, wondering when this game will have anything to offer. This game gets an F. For as hellbent as it is on being a cleaning simulator, the only real trash it needs to take out is itself.