PowerWash Simulator Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 11/14/2024)

[Image from igdb.com]

PowerWash Simulator

Developer: Futurlab

Publisher: Square Enix

Genre(s): Simulation

Platforms: PC, Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PS5, Xbox Series X

Release Date: July 14, 2022

My first paid job in life was working at a car wash. From my late teens to my early 20s, I drove twenty minutes all the way across my home county as the sun was signaling a new day at either 8 or 9 AM and worked six to eight-hour days on the weekends after attending either high school or college full time during the week. My schedule at this job evolved to working almost full-time during the summer. I sacrificed potential parties and other social gatherings with friends, my hobbies, and my precious sleep for the sake of making minimum wage and to uphold that first step into adult responsibilities. Hey, we all have to make the plunge during this era of adolescence that allows us to adapt to the adult world. Still, I believe that this particular job was rather challenging for a young person with no work experience, or more so than just sitting at a counter and collecting people’s cash in exchange for their services like many teenagers do. This job involved strenuous pressure on one’s feet standing in the washing tunnel and attending to everyone’s individual wishes for their filthy automobiles as they entered one by one like a lunch line. On winter days after snowfall would delay schools and inhibit people from traveling, what felt like the entire population of central Maryland would storm onto the lot and form a ceaselessly ending line that rivaled the length of a console launch event outside of a GameStop for us to blow the salt off their vehicles with pressurized liquid. While I’m on the subject, the tunnel was not heated, so the combination of standing around outside all day in weather below freezing shooting soapy water afflicted me with an unpleasant illness soon after. The people working at the Taco Bell up the hill used to give me their condolences when I took my lunch break on those days. Did I mention this job was dangerous? You can imagine being in close quarters with the general public driving their two-ton steel bullets in your direction makes you liable for grievous injury, which thank God never occurred. Not to mention, what harm they could potentially do to the equipment, which resulted in a calamitous system crash whenever someone ignored our directions. From a customer service standpoint, several of the patrons tended to be particularly quick to harsh vocal aggravation. Fucking up someone’s food is one thing, but mistreating something that many people perceive as a precious member of their family is bound to generate some serious outrage. If dumping out the unholy terrors that were disposed of in our trash cans (that were just empty chemical drums) didn’t befoul my clothing, then the odd aroma of the cleaning chemicals was always enough to make me nauseous once I returned home. I often have dreams where I still work at this job and I’m catapulted into a chaotically stressful, worst-case-scenario day seven years after I left for greener pastures.

When I became aware of a game such as PowerWash Simulator that gamified my teenage wage struggles, my eyebrow raised so high up in incredulity that it almost popped off my head. Are you telling me that there is a video game that simulates my arduous experiences and that there are numbskulls out there that are genuinely…enjoying it? Oh, to be so ignorant. In actuality, once I played PowerWash Simulator, I could see the appeal of the game, or at least from an outsider’s point-of-view, uncolored by performing the real-world parallel for four years. Aiming the water gun at an object until it's spotless is a task that requires little to no strain on one’s brain, and I should know. Really, the monotony of it all is somewhat relaxing compared to the reflexes and acute mind functions needed to succeed with most games. However, the game will start to frustrate players when the size of the objects needed to be hosed down expands to things that would realistically require a team to clean, especially since the game is scrupulous with wiping away its dirt specks. Seems a little counterintuitive for the game’s effortless ethos, does it not?

At the end of the day, PowerWash Simulator probably still wouldn’t stimulate me even if it didn’t remind me of workplace trauma from a decade ago. Comfortable games with menial objectives seem to be an ever-present trend in the modern gaming landscape, and I can’t quite gel with a lack of meatiness in a game even if that’s the point of it. For those who enjoy a humdrum simulation game where one can have a spot of tea over to decompress, I'm sure PowerWash Simulator will be satisfying. Alas, seeing people play this game conjures up the Rolling Stones song, "Gimmie Shelter" as I have uncomfortable flashbacks.