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 operating 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. Peculiar individuals don’t obsess over the variations between an NVMe SSD or a 2.5-inch laborious 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 electronic mail. In case you haven’t performed the unique sport, PCBS2 might sound a bit surreal, as you might want to stroll your character over to an in-game laptop to entry your electronic mail and different purposes. Fortunately a useful tutorial walks you thru the method step-by-step.

Every tutorial explains the finer factors of operating your enterprise 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 particular job for the primary time. Sadly, there’s no approach to simply revisit these tutorials in the event you’ve forgotten do one thing.

The roles you tackle vary from cleansing the mud out of previous PCs to overclocking CPUs or constructing desktops from scratch whereas retaining inside your shopper’s price range. Ultimately, similar to the unique sport, the roles quickly turn into a follow in studying comprehension. Buried in every electronic mail, you’ll discover non-obligatory requests that, when happy, internet you entry to higher-tier jobs. It’s simply unlucky that there isn’t extra selection within the targets, that are similar to what we noticed within the unique PCBS. Some extra targets are hooked up to customizing a shopper’s PCs with totally 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 maybe the largest addition to PCBS2, letting you rework any desktop into an aesthetically offensive gaming icon. You’ll be able to 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 degree 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 area, however you may get extra granular this time, with the flexibility to swap out desk designs, decor, partitions, and flooring. There aren’t many personalization choices, however this characteristic is a pleasant contact. Whilst you can’t intestine renovate your workplace, you’ve much more flexibility together with your workspace this time round, functionally and aesthetically.

When you’ve arrange your workspace, you naturally should construct some PCs. Fortunately,  PCBS2 ships with a powerful listing of latest PC elements starting from GPUs to water cooling blocks and circumstances. A lot of the elements are from in style producers and are just about equivalent to the real-world counterparts made by NZXT, MSI, and Cooler Grasp. Up to now, PCBS has accomplished a wonderful job retaining components lists updated with free updates, which isn’t a easy activity, contemplating we’ve seen a number 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 adjustments the way you work together with {hardware} is the introduction of becoming customized water-cooling blocks to your motherboard, RAM or GPU. Moving into a number of the extra technical points is the best transfer for PCBS2, and de-lidding CPUs is a characteristic that’s apparently on the roadmap.

It’s clear that the builders are taking steps to streamline the general expertise of PCBS2. A number of the quality-of-life options instituted with the unique sport make a welcome return, particularly 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 embody linking bought components together with your in-progress jobs, which turns out to be useful when juggling a number of open tasks. Some new options particular to PCBS2 embody a thermal imaging app that permits you to troubleshoot explicit elements and an in-game RAM voltage calculator for overclocking reminiscence. 

Nevertheless, contemplating how a lot time you spend in menus with PCBS2, they need to be extra intuitive. It’s a bit of complicated as a result of lots of the in-game apps you utilize mirror their real-world counterparts however lack any of the usability options you’d count on. Think about navigating your desktop with out the flexibility to resize home windows or use any of the shortcuts you’re accustomed to; that’s what it appears 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 via objects. Probably the most irritating, nevertheless, was a bug that made it unattainable to work together with the sport’s on-screen GUI. A very good portion of your jobs require putting in apps or modifying the BIOS on a given machine, which is unattainable in the event you can’t work together with the display screen.

Even with its myriad of bugs, PCBS2 shares the identical addictive qualities as its predecessor that had me saying, “only one extra job”. Nevertheless, 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 purpose of cultivating sufficient capital to safe possession of your store. Proper now, there isn’t a lot to maintain you taking part in over the long run aside from leveling as much as unlock new components by finishing progressively extra difficult jobs.

Proper now, the sport doesn’t add sufficient or do issues otherwise sufficient to warrant a “2” Nevertheless, given how a lot the unique PCBS has modified since its launch, I’m excited to see the place PCBS shall be in a 12 months or so. However now, PCBS2 appears extra all in favour of testing the waters with a handful of shallow options moderately 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 total lack of content material, I can’t overlook the sport’s potential as a wonderful instructional device. Earlier than taking part in the unique PCBS, I’d by no means constructed a pc. However taking part in over time gave me the boldness 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 via the Epic Video games Retailer.