The sequel to PC Constructing Simulator feels prefer it’s nonetheless beneath development

I used to be unreasonably excited to play the follow-up to PC Constructing Simulator. The unique sport taught me the finer factors of constructing a PC and married the technical points with all of the logistical drudgery of working your individual enterprise. Sadly, PC Constructing Simulator 2 doubles down on a number of the extra bothersome points whereas solely including a small handful of shallow options.

As with many simulator video games, PCBS2 is about appreciating the mundane. Bizarre folks don’t obsess over the variations between an NVMe SSD or a 2.5-inch arduous drive or fine-tuning the voltage on a GPU, however these are the small print that PC-building fans crave. 

Like the unique sport, PCBS2 has you taking cost of a run-down laptop restore store. You begin with a small sum of cash and a handful of jobs delivered by way of e mail. If you happen to haven’t performed the unique sport, PCBS2 may appear a bit surreal, as it’s good to stroll your character over to an in-game laptop to entry your e mail and different functions. Fortunately a useful tutorial walks you thru the method step-by-step.

Every tutorial explains the finer factors of working your small business by slowly doling out extra difficult jobs as you acquire extra expertise. The tutorial will stroll you thru what to do everytime you encounter a selected job for the primary time. Sadly, there’s no solution to simply revisit these tutorials when you’ve forgotten easy methods to do one thing.

The roles you tackle vary from cleansing the mud out of outdated PCs to overclocking CPUs or constructing desktops from scratch whereas retaining inside your consumer’s price range. Ultimately, similar to the unique sport, the roles quickly grow to be a follow in studying comprehension. Buried in every e mail, you’ll discover elective requests that, when happy, internet you entry to higher-tier jobs. It’s simply unlucky that there isn’t extra selection within the aims, that are similar to what we noticed within the unique PCBS. Some extra aims are hooked up to customizing a consumer’s PCs with completely different decals and paint jobs or using new elements, however PCBS2 doesn’t add too many new wrinkles to the roles seen within the unique.

Customization is probably the most important addition to PCBS2, letting you remodel any desktop into an aesthetically offensive gaming icon. You may apply layered combos of vinyl skins, particular person stickers, and spray paint to any PC. The customization instruments are clumsy, and when you’ll unlock new vinyl wraps and decals as you stage up, there’s at the moment no manner to make use of any customized property, which is disappointing.

The customization options additionally prolong to your workshop. The unique sport allowed you to personalize your workplace house, however you will get extra granular this time, with the power to swap out desk designs, decor, partitions, and flooring. There aren’t many personalization choices, however this function is a pleasant contact. When you can’t intestine renovate your workplace, you’ve way more flexibility together with your workspace this time round, functionally and aesthetically.

When you’ve arrange your workspace, you naturally need to construct some PCs. Fortunately,  PCBS2 ships with a formidable listing of latest PC elements starting from GPUs to water cooling blocks and instances. Many of the elements are from well-liked producers and are just about similar to the real-world counterparts made by NZXT, MSI, and Cooler Grasp. Prior to now, PCBS has carried out a wonderful job retaining elements lists updated with free updates, which isn’t a easy activity, contemplating we’ve seen a bunch of recent {hardware} from Nvidia and AMD, to not point out Intel’s new ARC graphics playing cards.

One of many different standout options that modifications the way you work together with {hardware} is the introduction of becoming customized water-cooling blocks to your motherboard, RAM or GPU. Entering into a number of the extra technical points is the best transfer for PCBS2, and de-lidding CPUs is a function that’s apparently on the roadmap.

It’s clear that the builders are taking steps to streamline the general expertise of PCBS2. A few of the quality-of-life options instituted with the unique sport make a welcome return, specifically the pill system, which helps you to entry many of the capabilities that initially required you to run again to your workplace PC. Another intelligent additions embrace linking bought elements together with your in-progress jobs, which is useful when juggling a number of open initiatives. Some new options particular to PCBS2 embrace a thermal imaging app that permits you to troubleshoot specific elements and an in-game RAM voltage calculator for overclocking reminiscence. 

Nonetheless, contemplating how a lot time you spend in menus with PCBS2, they need to be extra intuitive. It’s slightly complicated as a result of most of the in-game apps you employ mirror their real-world counterparts however lack any of the usability options you’d anticipate. Think about navigating your desktop with out the power to resize home windows or use any of the shortcuts you’re accustomed to; that’s what it looks like in PCBS2.  

None of that is helped by the truth that PCBS2 is remarkably buggy. On a number of events, I encountered jobs that I couldn’t full. Graphical glitches are much less widespread, however I did run into situations of levitating {hardware} or elements clipping by way of objects. Essentially the most irritating, nonetheless, was a bug that made it unimaginable to work together with the sport’s on-screen GUI. An excellent portion of your jobs require putting in apps or modifying the BIOS on a given machine, which is unimaginable when you can’t work together with the display.

Even with its myriad of bugs, PCBS2 shares the identical addictive qualities as its predecessor that had me saying, “only one extra job”. Nonetheless, there at the moment isn’t sufficient content material to maintain me coming again. There’s a rudimentary achievement system in place, however there isn’t sufficient of a metagame to maintain you invested for very lengthy. The unique sport had a modest endgame objective of cultivating sufficient capital to safe possession of your store. Proper now, there isn’t a lot to maintain you enjoying over the long run aside from leveling as much as unlock new elements by finishing progressively extra difficult jobs.

Proper now, the sport doesn’t add sufficient or do issues otherwise sufficient to warrant a “2” Nonetheless, given how a lot the unique PCBS has modified since its launch, I’m excited to see the place PCBS can be in a 12 months or so. However now, PCBS2 appears extra concerned about testing the waters with a handful of shallow options quite than diving headfirst right into a single one.

PCBS2 didn’t get its hooks in me the identical manner as the unique, however regardless of its bugs and general lack of content material, I can’t overlook the sport’s potential as a wonderful academic instrument. Earlier than enjoying the unique PCBS, I’d by no means constructed a pc. However enjoying over time gave me the arrogance to construct a number of real-world desktops. And whereas I’m not going to be water-cooling my GPU or motherboard any time quickly, PCBS2 has actually piqued my curiosity.

PC Constructing Simulator 2 launched on October twelfth on PC by way of the Epic Video games Retailer.