Some thoughts about PC Building Simulator – It’s probably not as awesome as you think it is…
System Requirements, price and what the game is about
PC Building Simulator costs $/€20 and it’s currently on sale (a 10% one at that) so it won’t be breaking your bank. It’s coded in Unity and it’s made by one teenager who started it out as small project last year which ended up becoming very popular.
- An Intel Core i5 2500K
- A Geforce GTX 660
- 4GB RAM
- Windows 7
- 4GB HDD space available
Graphics, Sound and Gameplay
Graphics
First off, let’s start off with the graphics. Putting in mind that this is an indie game, the graphics aren’t half bad but they’re not anything to write home about. They’re somewhat generic but they’re quite detailed at places where it matters such as PC parts so the game isn’t an eyesore.
Sound
Gameplay and Content
Now, perhaps this is the area in which I felt the game lacked the most. I would dare say that this area is the reason why I wrote this article in the first place.
When you play the game, you’re presented with two different game modes:
- Free Build mode in which you can, as you’d expect, build a PC yourself and ‘benchmark’ it.
- Career mode in which you’re a computer technician that has their own business from what looks to be their house.
The free play mode is as you’d expect quite mundane after your first or second rig unless you have a very big liking for modern PC hardware. Yes, the hardware available is all modern (oldest stuff is from around 2013) so don’t expect to see any retro computer stuff!
In the career mode, you run your own business and you do this:
- Scan and Benchmark PCs —> These are pretty boring tasks that could make you wonder why you’re playing this game in the first place.
- Fix PCs by replacing broken hardware —> Standard hardware replacements with modern cases. Don’t expect anything fancy such as soldering components on failing hardware in a mini-game.
- Sometimes, you’ll have to diagnose computers that aren’t working properly
- Connecting and disconnecting lots of cables till you purchase upgrades to make the game do this on its own
- ‘Shopping’ online for parts
- Managing your business’ finances
As you’ve probably made out by now, the game play is somewhat boring and you’ll likely get tired of it after an hour or two, like I did.
I sat through about 1.5 hours of career mode before I called it quits because well, it gets repetitive very quickly and there isn’t much of an incentive to continue playing since there’s no real end goal. OmegaOS isn’t really all that interesting either…
I’m personally not a big fan of simulation games with no real end goal, bar for a few exceptions such as SimCity and PowderToy, so that may be a factor but the problem is that there’s no real satisfaction if you get further in the game. You’ll keep on doing the same things over again until you get bored.
This section, which is arguably the most important one, is the one in which the game falls short in because after my playing session, I only had one thought in my mind which was “Had I not been listening to some music I like, I would’ve wasted 1.5 hours“.
Conclusion
As I don’t consider this to be a proper review but more of a mini-review, I won’t be giving a detailed score but I’ll let you know what my final word on it is.
Final thoughts: If you’re really hyped up about building PCs with the latest specifications and are a real fan of simulation games and new case designs, then go for it. For anybody else, I would advise against it unless it gets discounted to $5 or less (Humble Bundle-esque deals) OR it gets some content that interests you, such as some soldering mini-games and retro hardware/software for me. Perhaps, this game would be better on a mobile device where you’d play the game in short bursts. Maybe this game shouldn’t get as much good press as it’s getting…
Final verdict: One of those games that could have some potential with a lot of work and content that you specifically like. Otherwise, it’s not a great way to spend your time in its current state!
This game is a little like a soft drink. You play it and after the initial period of satisfaction, you’ll probably forget about it!
Steam Link: http://store.steampowered.com/app/621060/PC_Building_Simulator/
Why is there an article on this at all… it’s another one of those typical dumb games like Goat Simulator that people waste money on and forget about.
Well, this article is here to make people think twice about wasting money in the first place if they’re interested in this game.
Fair point, never understood the appeal of these “trending” games.
Simple: Those games are programmed by stupid kids who just because they know how to program in Unity think they are experts, when they don’t realize that programming a good game is a serious, difficult and sometimes ungrateful job, especially when they have to deal with certain audiences….
OR, maybe this started just as a POC and his friends encouraged him to try to sell it. Also, this might be valuable for people that wants to learn the trade, of course it will be boring to people like us.
Cut him some slack…if it’s a teenager he has a lot to learn yet…
But this article defeats the purpose… now a lot more ppl know that this thing exists… and with everything that gets unnecessary attention, ppl will buy it.
Don’t look at it, don’t speak about it, don’t think about it.
It like that old magic card’s saying:
“If its weak, ki11 or ignore it. Anything else will make it strong.”
Nice, a review ! (Starts reading)
*scrolls down, sees author*
(Continues reading with a more feminine voice in my mind)
I would say it’s a quick review but it has an excellent point mentioning SATISFACTION. If you don’t get satisfied from a game, you tend to stop playing, whatever the game has to offer. So good little review, Aurora !
You needn’t scroll down to see who the author is as it’s exactly underneath the article title ;p
In the internet, especially gaming, everyone is either a guy or a dude pretending to be a girl
Yeah i get that. I have doubts when someone online is saying ” im a gal”. But in the end, i dont care.
If your online avatar is a girl or boy, let it be.
okey i get it … this game needs work ..
what else could use work in my opinion first is …
basiliskII wine3.apk port crosscompiled
or native vita wine3.apk port
or a better review/tutorial section for the lastest snoops
what about vita/ps4 compo’s like u did
better lists of what works and what not
in short i see a forrest but it could allso be just one tree
Lmao, this is what the pcmr has been reduced to. Playing pretend since mommy and daddy are no longer paying for their subscription to the pcmr after miners pwnd it.
This is not what I come to Wololo to read. I’d rather come to the page and see no new articles, and no updates, rather than have wasted my time reading this. It has nothing to do with any of the topics I come here for. And of course, it was Aurora who wrote it.
Well, there’s a dearth of the news we want. I echo your frustration but just be glad you don’t have to purchase tampons every month.
yeah. i’d rather read articles about vita ports or ps4 homebrews. wololo’s reputation as serious site dropping down because of author’s opinions, and steam reviews. i don’t mind reading that stuff on aurora’s twitter or reddit, but not on wololo.
good quick review anyway.
Please save this kinda stuff for your personal blog. This is not why people come to Wololo.
While your opinion does hold some water, I’d like to state that I wrote this article here because I think that a decent amount of viewers like using/modding both consoles and computers.
Due to this, I think that some of this website’s viewers may be interested in such a game just to tinker with computers so that’s why I decided to write an article about it
With all due respect, not only is this terribly written, but it’s also not relevant to the site. If this becomes a thing, I definitely will lose interest in coming here.
Aurora u gotta pic, I’m in love =p
It’s a dude…
It’s kind of a harsh (mini) review, but at least one spoken from real experience with the real thoughts about the game, unlike dozen of other review websites….
anyways, that was tricky of you aurora! I thought it’s some kind of new game or homebrew to the vita! you literally tricked me, I would love that for the vita (even though I don’t use public transportations, I could use it for break time at work)
Hmm, I didn’t write PSVita in the title but I do agree, it could be a fun game for the PSVita to, as I stated in the article, play in short bursts.
Yes, the fact that most websites said it was great without really trying it out and saying that the best part about was that it was made by a teenager was a factor in deciding to write this article.
People willingly sit back and play something like Truck Diver Simulator. So i don’t see why people won’t play this
As someone who has actually built computers before, I’d never spend money on such a terrible idea for a game. Assembly is literally the least fun part of building a computer. Picking out which parts to buy and actually using my new build are quite fun, but again, they make for a *** game idea. Actually assembling the parts is an exercise in tedium. Press too hard or accidentally brush against the wrong thing, and you’ve either broken an expensive part or
drastically reduced its lifespan. Oh, and you’d better hope that the documentation that comes with your parts are properly updated. When I built my first gaming rig, the diagrams in the user manual for my motherboard were outdated. I literally had to figure out the right jumper configuration by trial and error.
Wololo must be desperate for click if now do reviews. And with good reason.
You sound like the intelligent individual who named himself wololothinktheyare. Funny to read but you are better off acting this way on habbo hotel. Sounds like your crowd
He’s just butthurt Nintendo security is bad and locked him out of features but he’s not smart enough to hack it so he cries about it on this site.
Sad creature with no life.
Haha I’ve actually added this to my wishlist yesterday. Now this game it’s in EARLY ACCESS but still it’s way too OVERPRICED atm and there’s no doubt that it will need A LOT of work… btw check out their “early access roadmap” @ https://www.pcbuildingsim.com/early-access-roadmap/
If you don’t want to read about it, don’t click. Seriously, not that hard. Looking forward to further reviews Aurora, this was a fun read.
First of all, this article makes no sense from the title on down. and to be clear im not raging but i feel like it needs to be said:
its a PC building simulator, its not meant to be some awesome amazeballs game.
Moving on
U clearly know nothing about pc hardware/performance to say that a dated Intel Core i5 2500K, dated Geforce GTX 660, 4GB RAM, Windows 7 (which has nothing to do with performance), 4GB HDD space available (which anyone who owns a pc has more than) is pretty high for “RECOMMENDED” not minimum specs. pretty high for what? to run on low? to run on 720p? like what? ur basically saying old cheap hardware is overkill to run games that dont demand much. which absolutely makes no sense considering the fact that your saying it ran in 720 at 30fps on low with a lesser performing system. I would’ve understood if the specs were (just throwing random beefy parts out there to make the point) a 5th gen i7-K with a gtx 1060 that’s what u call overkill for lesser demanding games, not hardware that’s 6-7 years old. had you said it was a lot for minimum specs that would’ve been a tad bit more acceptable.
its a game that’s not meant to look pretty, and because of that it does not demand much from hardware, so you dont need much to run the game. its not the latest tomb raider, or crysis 3 in 4k which is still hard for most systems to run even today unless u have some overkill system.
In my opinion this is a really good game! It has his bad sides, but since it’s just a single dev it’s a good game overall! (I’m a Dev myself and I know how hard it is to make such a game!)
Graphics:
Since the Graphic Details are based on Unity’s Standard Options, he can’t really do anything against that!
Gameplay:
It’s a Early Access Game, there may be coming something like Soldering etc.
Audio:
I actually enjoy the Soundtracks^^
OmegaOS:
What do you want from an Emulated OS Inside a Game? It’s a PC Building Simulator, not a “Play Games on a Simulated OS inside a Game Simulator”^^ It’s doing it’s purpose: You have a Parts Shop, Email and bunch of other stuff!
(As I said that’s my Opinion!)
if anything i would like a pure document version of this game tho
or a text version of construction parts with price ranges
just like it would be a real store
i dont grasp
opengl to draw the pc lol
Good morning
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They are actively deleting comments that criticize the writing style. What does that say about the site?
I think this is those kinda games that teaches more than entertain.
I can see myself learning about how to build a PC and what parts are better together rather than doing that for some kind of progression.
It could be good if you have little to no knowledge about the subject.
I just wonder if you can do some fancy stuff like installing a water cooler or make the whole system run inside a mineral oil tank.
full of bugs . like display cables will come through the screen on the monitor and if you buy a bunch of cases before level 6 .. game over you won’t be able to get rid of them and will have to restart from the beginning