Job Simulator – Hard at work or hardly working?

I start things off in a large white room greeted by friendly robots instructing me about where I am. Job Simulator is based on the idea that all mankind has died many years ago and now robots rule the world. I am visiting this place to experience the everyday jobs of the previous humans of the past.

On the table in front of me is a tray of video game cartridge shaped objects with job titles on them, I take the first one “Office Worker” and toss it into the machine. I’m now transported to an office and inside a worker’s cubicle. I am surrounded by all the common things an office might have like computers, printers, staplers and such. I am then greeted by a robot who informs me that humans in this time liked to eat lots doughnuts and sugar filled coffee’s prior to a work day.

A cart appears with a box of doughnuts and coffee mugs, I am able to open the box grab a doughnut pull it do my face and experience a satisfying chomp out of it. Naturally I begin to grab them with both hands quickly chomping away the whole box in seconds. Next I take the coffee mug and fill it with creamer, sugar and lots of coffee so much that it overflows and spills everywhere.

I begin grabbing random items off the desk such as the stapler that allows you to fire staples in a gun like fashion or the copy machine which ironically lets you copy whole objects like plants or multiple staplers for duel wielding fun. You can interact with the computer, painting or even making a power point presentation for a future mission. The office worker is jam packed with over 1.5+ hours worth of missions and tons of fun things to mess with.

I head back to the main games lobby via summoning a briefcase and eating the “really” burrito, very creative concept. Next I choose the chef worker which allows me to prepare food for hungry customers. You can make bizarre sandwiches create a variety of soups mixing ingredients in a large stove top pot. The missions are fun and get you to explore almost every single aspect of the cooking area. Feel like juggling tomatoes? want to make a nuclear tea? feel like making a wine steak burnt toast omelet sandwich? or maybe you just enjoy listening to music and tossing random items into the piranha tank across the hall to be chipped? whatever it is your looking to mess around with in a kitchen this has it.

The other two jobs were auto mechanic and store clerk. As a clerk I was able to serve my “happy” customers by providing them with common store items they asked for. I was able to ring up items multiple times, short change them, burn there food, throw things at them. Basically do everything you ever wanted to do as a fed up person in customer service. Moving onto the auto mechanic you take on the roll of a swindly mechanic fixing clients cars as they arrive at your garage. pull apart the cars and give them cheap parts to save a buck, replace the battery with a potato, fill the gas tank with hot sauce, attempt to throw a Frisbee out the garage door at passing cars. The sky is the limit in all these jobs and it truly is a blast interacting with objects in the environment.

Simple cartoon style graphics are pleasantly used in this game and give your a fun feeling and care free experience. Objects are all very intractable and well detailed for the way they function. I was constantly testing things to see if they would react the way my mind assumed they would and sure enough they did exactly what I imagined very pleased with that.

The audio is also very good, its comedic and the sound effects are very cartoon-esk loud drippy sounds from pouring liquid and bonk and smash sounds from breaking and throwing objects. The robots speaking is also a great laugh going from a random smooth talking to a monotone inserted statement really brings up some great humor filled moments.

I have only experienced a few tracking issues as others have had at the time of this review, but for the most part the game is exceptionally accurate in the tracking. I am easily able to toss objects in the air and catch them with the other hand. Moving around the room feels great and unhindered by any design issues.

There were no moments of sickness or uncomfortable feelings throughout my 5 hours of playing this title so far, very smooth and very well designed for VR.

I’m really hoping for more experiences to come soon, more jobs, more ideas to keep me invested in the game.

I would really like to see some sort of multiplayer implemented in the future, and perhaps co op games where you would have to work together to prepare a meal or perform a task.