Got this for free via PS+ and gave it a few hours, and it was relaxing enough to begin with. Who wouldn't enjoy completely rinsing a car in five minutes with minimal effort? Unfortunately, the game gets real picky as you progress. Having to scour for that last invisible speck of dirt to fully clean a large wall or finding out which one of the sixteen identical wooden trims I had to more thoroughly investigate for every job really wore me out. Also, this might just be my experience playing on PS5 with a controller, but my right hand started aching after a half hour of constantly holding down the right trigger to continuously spray surfaces. Not a great feeling when you need a break from your gaming break!

When I first played Super Mario Sunshine as a kid, I always made sure to clean up all of the paint in every level, down to the last pixel, beyond whatever the amount of cleaning any episode required was. It just felt nice to do, the game is about cleaning Delfino Island, so why not actually do that, even if you get almost nothing for it. Maybe the game doesn't notice when I leave a spot on the floor unclean, but I do, and if I'm the only one who notices it, I guess I just have to clean it up. It was like this satisfying little side-job I had while also being Mario and doing the usual bing-bing-wahoo stuff, something just for me.

And now they made a whole game about cleaning stuff with a water gun, so you could probably guess that I'm totally hooked on it. It's a lovely idealized version of a mundane task. No outside distractions or real-world costs that come with actual power washing, just you, your tools, a constant stream of water, aaaaand dirt. Put on music, a podcast, or just listen to the sound of your power washer, and lose a couple of hours cleaning a lawn so dirty you swear someone is just shitting on the patio furniture or something. It's a version of work where the results are instant, satisfying, and immediately fulfilling, the perfect escape from my current state. Wondering if I'll be able to pull myself away from this soon to finish something else before the year ends, we'll see.

"5 stars? Are you being ironic?"

No, I'm not, this game put me in a trancelike state for 9.7 hours according to Steam. And that was just my first session, I still need to finish it.

If you see the title of this game and think "wow that sounds cathartic" then you should just get this without thinking about it.

Everything's covered in grime, and only you and your pressure washer have what it takes to clean up these streets. The ultimate power fantasy. Put on a podcast you've been meaning to catch up on, and just go to town.

EDIT: i gave it that extra half-star, this is a near-flawless experience. i have dozens of hours in it and i still haven't reached the end of what's in this game so far. this legitimately might end up as my game of the year.

Super relaxing and well-crafted game that shoots itself in the foot when you start spending twenty-thirty minutes hunting down the last specks of miniscule dirt you missed beneath a random veranda or the corner of a shed gutter. In those moments, you just want it to be fucking over already and you're racking your brain trying to figure out where the last drops are, and that runs completely against the relaxing and easy-to-play facade this game presents. And unfortunately, this hurts the game way more than it thinks. Satisfaction gives way to madness, and there's a hollow feeling when you spend upwards of an hour plus on a stage and realize you actually aren't getting paid in the real world for your attention to detail and thoroughness. Like, say what you will about escapism, but if I wanted to play a video game that literally feels like a job, then I'd much rather just work, because at least then I'll get paid for the soul-sucking monotony.

It's a comfortable game, but as somebody who played this game while it was still in early access, I kind of expected the final release to have more to it and also fix some of the bugs and bizarre design choices that have been here for over a year now. This game's initially really relaxing and cozy, and admittedly it makes for a great background thing to just mindlessly play while listening to podcasts and audiobooks, but I really wanted more levels like the early houses and neighborhoods, and less of the increasingly bizarre and outlandish stuff towards the end.

The developers seemed to think people wanted levels that were bigger in scale and not just, more places. I wanted more houses, backyards, hell just let me go powerwash a sidewalk. Places like the subway and the underground bathroom are way too big and genuinely become frustrating. It's frankly the biggest issue I have with PowerWash Simulator, because for a game that should be relaxing, it feels like I spent way too much time having to do literal pixel peeping and randomly spraying surfaces that should be clean. I shouldn't be confused wondering why something's not clearing, waving my mouse around wildly for that one pixel of the bar to clear up, and just suddenly having the game tell me it's now clean even though I have no clue what I missed.

Also for these being powerwashers, they sure are all terrible at actually powerwashing. I already knew from the early access builds of the game that saving your money and trying to get the Prime Vista PRO as soon as possible was basically essential for the sake of saving time and sanity, and even despite it being the endgame "strongest washer in the game," it's more than frustrating how you basically can never use any nozzle other than the yellow one, sometimes the green one, and on occasion the red one because of a surface being incredibly stubborn to clean off. The Triple Tip Nozzle was added for the final release version of the game, and very quickly I started only using that for cleaning because it was just objectively better than all the other nozzles, and there were still rare occasions where it wasn't good enough. What the hell is the point of the other powerwashers in the game when the endgame best one still struggles with cleaning?

And frankly, I really don't care for the story and as mean as it sounds, I kept wishing for an option to just straight up disable the message pop-ups on the side from the clients. Their dialogue is mostly meaningless and distracting from what's supposed to be a cozy atmosphere, and at actual worst the game dares to obliterate that atmosphere by having clients that send you actually genuinely annoying and distasteful messages, like the client for some of the carnival levels that tries to score and judge your cleaning work, or an entire subplot with a town mayor doing suspicious stuff and making you deal with the aftermath of protests against him. What the fuck?

It really sucks because as much as I'm complaining, I genuinely want more of these kind of mindless cozy games that you can play on the side while listening/watching other things. FuturLab almost had something on their hands with this, but bigger doesn't mean better and I honest to god would've been more than happy with just a game where I got to powerwash houses and their neighborhoods. When the game's simple and to the point, it just works. But as soon as it starts sending you off to the bigger places and the story starts moving in weird directions, it almost entirely veers off the deep end. I'd like to hope that either content updates or a sequel could do something more with this, or even more ideally mod support but FuturLab has always seemed very quiet and dodging around the idea even back in early access, so who knows.

Um dos jogos mais chatos e entediantes que já joguei. Se vc gosta de simulador talvez até ache legal, mas no meu caso foi uma grande chatice. A primeira missão é no mínimo interessante, lenta e que te da sono mas pelo menos da pra terminar, na segunda quando vc começa a lavar o quintal e percebe que vai demorar PRA CARAMBA pra terminar, te da uma grande frustração e má vontade de continuar. Não recomendo nem pra pegar conquista pq se não vc pode morrer de tanto tédio com essa porcaria. Não consigo entender como avaliaram tão bem esse jogo aqui no Backloggd.

My life was changed by all this washing. I've understood so much about myself. I know where my path lies, and what struggles I must fight to get there. I know what my purpose is now.

Steven Spielberg once allegedly said "I think the real indicator that games have become a storytelling art form will be when somebody confesses that they cried at level 17."

Steven Spielberg had clearly not played PowerWash Simulator.

This game directly fuels my depression.

Now, this is not a statement about the basic conceit of the game or how well that conceit is adapted into gameplay, but this (and I assume other) simulation of menial labour without any purpose makes me enter a very troublesome state of mind.

The basic gameplay loop of having to clean several giant buildings and vehicles with a basic toolset that barely changes is neither a fun not otherwise satisfying undertaking for me, but that alone doesn’t really trigger negative thoughts, it’s just kind of boring to me. The worst part about it is that despite its very apparent repetetiveness and simplicity it is highly addicting, because the game gives you a neat checklist and small visual and auditory rewards for cleaning every single surface. Every time you clean a surface to an amount the game deems “good enough to be done” (usually a very reasonable estimate by the game devs) a small reward sound plays and the surface in question blinks white, as to suggest that it’s now clean and polished. The game is also not entirely without merits in regards to moment-to-moment decision-making, you can use different nozzles and cleaning agents - not to mention navigating the space to reach the more elusive spots. If you wanted to challenge yourself by speedrunning this game I assume it’d be fun in weird way.

This level of engagement to my reptile brain is just enough to keep going despite not getting any actual fulfillment from it. The problem is obvious: This game traps me. I play this game for 2 hours to clean a carousel and while I do get a momentary dopamine hit for each surface cleaned, this is not an intrinsic reward for me, and it doesn’t even elicit a genuine feeling of accomplishment. It’s just the game telling me: “You’ve done a good job! Here, have a treat.” There is no emotional arc here, there is no relaxation from a real-life work day, and this game just feels like unpaid and unsatisfying labour. In the real world, I could very likely feel a sense of purpose for this work, simply because I’d be materially helping people and restoring real properties to their former beauty, but I do not derive any enjoyment from menial tasks done for the sake of themselves. When you clean a property in this game, it will just stay cleaned in the transient digital void, for no one (not even yourself) to ever appreciate that work again.

I do not believe the makers of this game are incompetent, quite the opposite actually - They tried to build a game for people to relax, give some people a little reward here and there, and if these extrinsic pats on the back actually do it for you and make your day better, I am genuinely happy for you. But I also can’t deny what this game does me. It makes me feel like I wasted hours of my life doing nothing of value. Just the thought of booting it up again makes me feel anxious, because I don’t want to get caught in this loop again. The only thing of value I could extract from this game is that I learned something about myself: I should listen to the warning signs of a mental treadmill like this sooner. That nagging feeling that I’m not actually having fun and just going through the motions is probably right.

A 3D coloring book with the least functional multiplayer I’ve ever experienced in a video game.

The basic gameplay loop of Powerwash Sim is more fun and relaxing than I thought it would be. It’s a pretty zen and satisfying experience to clean a bunch of dirt off stuff. This experience would be made even better by doing it with friends, yet I cannot think of a better multiplayer game that is so uninterested in being a multiplayer game.

I have never, in my life, played a video game with such poorly made or optimized multiplayer as the multiplayer in Powerwash Simulator. I was floored with how bad it is. Firstly, progress is only tracked for the host. So if you’re hoping to play through the campaign with a friend, you’ll have to accept that you won’t unlock anything or progress your own game. The game is built as a single player experience first.

Let’s say you do decide to do one of the bonus missions with a group of friends. Good luck getting the gang together. It took us 30 minutes just to get all 4 of us into one game thanks to frequent connection issues coupled with offensively long loading screens. Once you do get in the game together, prepare to deal with obscene lag and sync issues. Throughout the game, you and your friends’ games will slowly get more and more out-of-sync. In their game, they’d see us cleaning a spot that we cleaned 15-20 minutes prior. By the end of our mission, my friends were over 25 minutes behind my game. I got the “Mission Complete” screen and we sat there for 20 minutes waiting for their games to catch up before getting bored and quitting.

This feels maybe nitpicky, but it would be cool if the game actually had some physics to it other than the water and dirt physics. I was a bit disappointed to find that the entire environment is basically a rendered static space. Anything you might expect would move like flowers, grass, windmills, etc, doesn’t. It’s a 3D coloring book and nothing more.

To add insult to injury, they keep dropping new content for the game while ignoring the issues that have been plaguing the game since launch. There are Reddit posts that are 2 years old complaining about the same issues we’re experiencing now. Fix your broken-ass game before adding Spongebob Squarepants to it.

If you want a game to play alone while you listen to a podcast or zone out, I’m sure Powerwash Simulator will do just fine, but I was pretty disappointed with how poorly-made the game was overall. It would be such a cool multiplayer experience to hang and clean with friends. Sadly, the multiplayer is genuinely the worst-made multiplayer I’ve ever experienced in a video game both in functionality and in optimization.

+ Cleaning can feel satisfying I guess
+ Probably a good podcast game or something

- Environments are static and lack any physics. It’s basically a 3D coloring book
- The most poorly-made, poorly-optimized multiplayer of all time. Don’t even bother
- UI controls on console are quite bad
- Can get tedious
- Finding the last 1% to finish a level or trying to find the tiniest dirt spec on a small part sucks
- Devs keep dropping new content while ignoring the bugs plaguing the game

It's fine. This was my first real experience with the chill 'normal thing simulator' genre, so maybe my expectations just weren't calibrated correctly, but it was just a bit slower than I wanted it to be with regard to level progression and upgrades and whatever. I know that killing time is essentially the point, but I did occasionally slip over the line from relaxed into bored territory. Still, it's basically the perfect podcast game and has a cute little unobtrusive story and lots of little quirks to enjoy.

ATENÇÃO: Esta review não é patrocinada pela Karcher Brasil ou Internacional.

Dentro de uma biblioteca absurdamente extensa de tudo que é tipo de simuladores que os videogames nos proporciona, depois do EuroTruck Simulator e do Farming Simulator, esse foi o único que realmente me deixou curioso. Não é pra menos, é um simulador KARCHER K2 PLUS.

De início até é um bom passatempo, é até satisfatório quando tu termina a van lá e compara ela ao estado que ela tava no início. O jogo não se leva a sério e esse é um dos grandes triunfos dele. O gráfico é simples mas bonito, principalmente pro que o jogo se propõe a ser, e as mecânicas são funcionais e a jogabilidade é bem simples e fácil de pegar.

Mas a questão é: não dá pra jogar isso por mais de uma hora. Quando tu termina de limpar a van e parte pra limpar o quintal, tu já percebe que esse jogo é uma alma maligna que te suga e faz em ti uma lavagem cerebral te transformando num demônio folclórico tailandês determinado a não deixar UM RASTRO de sujeira disponível nestas localizações virtuais. E o negócio fica muito, mas MUITO monótono. Os mapas são cada vez maiores e se tu jogar sozinho tu vai demorar literalmente horas pra limpar eles inteiros. As vezes tu acaba deixando passar alguns detalhes e quando tu acha que terminou, lá vem o jogo falar "Não, faltou ali.".

Não é um jogo ruim, só não é uma parada que tu pode rushar se quiser platinar ou fazer os 100%. É um jogo lento e, nesse caso, ele cumpre o principal papel dele: ser um simulador de KARCHER K2 PLUS. Ou tu acha mesmo que se tu pegar uma KARCHER K2 PLUS e ir limpar teu pátio tu vai mesmo terminar rapidinho? Não mesmo. Assim como a tarefa real, ele te exige paciência e determinação pra terminar de limpar os cenários virtuais e fazer com que eles fiquem irreconhecíveis. Novamente, cumpre o que se propõe a fazer. E cumpre com maestria, eu diria, porque uma vez fui limpar um tapete usando uma KARCHER K2 PLUS e levei bem mais de uma hora pra deixar aquela porra limpa.

Agora fica aqui só um parágrafo de leve desabafo. Eu botei na cabeça que esse jogo se passa em um universo pós apocalíptico onde uma tempestade de sujeira altamente aderente a construções se alastrou mundialmente ou que a empresa do jogo, a PowerWash, é envolvida com um submundo mafioso onde o dono do bagulho paga pra alguém ir lá sujar as paradas pra tu ter trabalho pra fazer. Porque, na boa, que cidade IMUNDA, brother. Pelo amor de deus, o cara é chamado pra limpar um quintal, uma casa (que não sei porque caralhos chamam de bangalô), um parquinho e os lugares tão INTEIROS cobertos de LAMA e FULIGEM PRETA. Mas tão cobertos que tem partes das paradas que literalmente parecem só um contorno pintado de preto por dentro de tanta sujeira encrostada. Eu sei que o objetivo é limpar a parada mas puta merda, que gente porca do cacete a população dessa porra hein, bicho. Uma moto offroad coberta de terra e lama eu até compro, agora UM FODENDO PARQUINHO INTEIRO? Caralho, irmão.

Devaneios a parte, o resumo é: não é ruim e pode divertir por uma hora ou talvez pouco mais que isso. Mas é um jogo pra ir jogando de pouquinho em pouquinho quando tu quiser só ligar o videogame pra espairecer e esfriar a cabeça, esvaziar a mente. Coisa que não te exija pensar muito, só apertar os gatilhos do controle e PSHHHHHHHH. Mas pra jogar de uma vez nem pensar. Só se tu for um doido com mania de limpeza virtual, aí é um prato cheio.