Imagine living in a future where robots have taken over our jobs. Everything that once mattered can simply be done by robots, sounds great? Think again! What would you do with your time? Watching television and surfing the internet is fun but doing it for the rest of your life over and over again sounds rather boring. Humans came up with a great solution, job simulators, where you could virtually work like humans had to work in the past. Welcome to Job Simulator!
Making the jump
Job Simulator isn’t a new game since it was one of the first (free) games that launched together with HTC’ Vive headset. The moment Vive launched, a lot of critics claimed that Job Simulator was the best game of the bunch and the game they really wanted to show others, demonstrating the potential of virtual reality. Since the game uses both move controllers, it couldn’t release on the Oculus Rift but thanks to the PlayStation Move, it made the jump to PlayStation VR. Is it reason to celebrate or should this game have stayed on one VR headset only? Time to find out!
Welcome to your new job
The moment you start playing this game, you’ll immediately be sucked into the great world the developers created. Although it uses a cartoony engine, you really believe you’re inside a virtual workplace. The controllers serve as your hands so you’ll need to hook up both PlayStation Move controllers to enjoy the game. Once you’ve done that, you can interact with everything you see around you, which is great! The game asks several things of you but never points out one solid solution, it’s up to you to interact with the right objects and find the link between them, which is great!
If real jobs were as fun as this…
Job Simulator doesn’t take itself too seriously and that’s the biggest strength of the game. Everything is explained to you by robots who are desperately trying to look and sound like human beings, resulting in some hilarious situations. It’s good to see that the developers had fun in creating this product and this fun really translate to the players as well. It’s never a boring day at the office here!
Different jobs
The game offers different jobs we all recognize and have some kind of knowledge of. Think about working in small offices, restaurants or repair jobs. The best thing about all those jobs is that you never really know what to expect from them since the robots are requesting strange things from time to time. I personally had most fun being a virtual cook in a restaurant. The reason for it is easy, you’re always looking for different solutions. The restaurant is filled with objects to interact with ranging from knives to microwaves. Making a sandwich is easy but things get more complex when you need to make a pizza using different ingredients and tools. It’s never boring on the job and the amount of freedom you get to complete your goal is extremely satisfying. It really feels like your first day on a new job but instead of angry managers you’ll meet friendly and funny robots.
The PlayStation VR port
Now since this is a port of the HTC Vive version, it’s worth pointing out some of the difference between both versions. The biggest change is that the scaling of rooms disappeared. That’s mostly because the hardware of Vive and PSVR works differently. Where you’ll need to set several cameras into your room using the Vive, the PSVR uses the PlayStation camera as the eye. Now, this also means that the PSVR doesn’t make a difference between a small or big room, something the Vive is able to do. In the Vive version of the game, you could have large playing areas depending on your actual room. In the PSVR version, each room is created in the smallest variant, meaning that even when you got a lot of space, you’ll still play in the smallest virtual room. It’s nothing game-breaking but it does take away some kind of immersion since you’ll never have to walk towards an object.
The PS Move controllers aren’t as accurate as the Vive motion controls neither. Meaning you’ll struggle a bit more while interacting with several objects. You’ll get there with some practice but it must be said that the Vive version has better controls. That being said, it’s still a great PSVR port and one of the better virtual reality games on the market nowadays.
Conclusion:
Job Simulator is a great PlayStation VR game and an example of games you’ll show to others to demonstrate the power of virtual reality. The virtual jobs are kept light and yet challenging thanks to the amount of freedom you get to solve the problem. We had a lot of fun playing this game and we’re sure a lot of you will share this opinion. If you own an HTC Vive, play it on that headset, if not, this PSVR version is a very decent port!
