I have to say: there’s a power in these mundane activity games that you won’t find anywhere else. It’s what kept me from going insane during the quarantine a few years ago with SnowRunner, and it’s the main driving force of PowerWash Simulator 2, a game where giving your brain a rest is its goal and in that it most certainly succeeds.
Compared to the first one, I would be hard-pressed to point out any particular differences in the overall goal of the game. You still own an urban cleaning company, but have now expanded to a big ol’ base of operations in the aptly-named town of Muckingham, an extremely cartoony location filled with crazy clients where you’ll be doing lots and lots of blowing away the grime off of just about everything. In that, thanks to the way that PowerWash Simulator 2 communicates missions to you via text messages, Muckingham feels more like a cohesive world that you are a part of, exploring new sections of with every job.
And you could say that your HQ is the true new main feature to PowerWash Simulator 2 since it’s an actual location now that there’s a named world where the game takes place. Basically, when you start the game, it’s just an empty building. As you play the game and get paid for the variety of jobs that you’ll take, the currency earned can be used to buy new furniture. True to its theme, you first need to wash off anything you buy before placing it, obviously.
While having more to do in a game is something that is usually welcome, the base building in this sequel feels a little out of place, and all things considered, it kind of gets in the way of the real meat of PowerWash Simulator 2, you know, the actual washing bit of the title. Then again, if you’re into that sort of distraction, there’s plenty of it, an extra reason, or goal if you will, to keep taking jobs.
As for the aforementioned gameplay, if you’ve ever operated a power washer, you’ll know what to expect as to how PowerWash Simulator 2 works. You shoot water as you would bullets in a regular first-person shooter, with the added ability to switch to a variety of different nozzles, spray guns, and new this time, even a surface scrubber, for the times when you need to get real up close to take care of business.
It’s all very mundane when you get down to it. The objects and locations that you are tasked with cleaning all start out disgustingly dirty. Seriously, it’s hard to imagine how irresponsible the fantasy people living in this game’s world have to be in order to let things get so bad, so you can guess that it takes a long time to get it all in tip top shape. The good news is that the more upgrades you buy, your options increase and it all makes your job a little easier.
And as with any activity that gets increasingly more demanding, it can always get better with a friend along for the ride. After all, two cleaners are better than one and get tasks done in half the time. Or at least that’s what you’d think is supposed to happen here with a good amount of coordination. There isn’t much griefing a partner could inflict on the other here since there’s nothing to mess up per se, and in all honesty, why would you get together with someone who doesn’t want to be doing what this game is all about? This isn’t an extraction shooter. You are just water pressure washing stuff!
So this is where I tell you that PowerWash Simulator 2 is an excellent game to play when you just need something to do that doesn’t involve a whole lot of brainpower, perhaps when listening to a podcast or talking on the phone. Your actual thoughts are elsewhere, but you are still engaging in an activity, for as ultimately silly as washing away virtual dirt can be. For what it is and the little that it strives to do, British studio FuturLab’s creation more than succeeds at getting to the core of what a videogame really is: a way of being entertained.
