I’ve concluded that simulation games are my secret pleasure in life. Whenever one is available for review, I’m usually the first to throw my hand in the air to do it. Cheesecake Dev is back with their second instalment into the streaming simulation scene with ‘Streamer Life Simulator 2’ in Early Access. Like most simulations, I found myself lost in time and racking up the hours super quickly and the outside world melted away.

The story starts with you working in a coffee shop, where the boss fires you for something I’m still confused about. You decide to put it all on the line and become a full-time streamer, which, like real life, has its ups and downs. You get to meet some interesting characters along the way, which is sometimes a blessing and sometimes a curse. I found it quite amusing how the developers used real-life companies but changed the names for obvious reasons. You will find all your favourites like Steam renamed ‘Smoke’ and Twitch becoming an on-the-nose name like ‘Dodo’, which for someone who is a streamer was quite a funny but mildly offensive connection.

As Alan de Lille once said, “Rome wasn’t built in a day” which is the same with a stream channel. Being a full-time streamer means you don’t have funds that just magically appear at first, so there are other ways to make money, in this case, food delivery. If you like gambling, there is also a cool little plane app you can bet on where you just need to cash-out before the plane lands, which is not as simple as it sounds to earn some quick but unreliable cash.

I loved how the developers added different streaming categories such as Just Chatting, ASMR, Pools, and Gaming. You can build an incredible little community by doing a combination or strictly one. One fault I found with the gaming was one game called “Camper Strike”, a neat little ‘Counter-Strike’ parody game. In the early days, you chatted on the right side before investing in a second monitor. When you flicked right, you would accidentally delete chats whilst trying to shoot someone. Controls, at times in general, aren’t the most fine-tuned but this was particularly irritating.

The more your stream improves, the more money you will raise, and the better gear you can invest in. From the absolute bucket of trash computer you start the game with to pretty impressive rigs, you can upgrade the internals of your PC down to the peripherals very extensively. If you want to decorate the room, add many random objects found along your travels or a nice inflatable pool for those pool streams.

I would love to see some environmental upgrades like the cars that drive around cleaning up pedestrians, which, as funny as it is the first couple of times when you are riding your push bike down the road and getting cleaned up by some mock-up R34 Skyline gets old super quick. Plenty of buildings around the township can be used in future updates which will be a welcomed inclusion.

The one thing that really surprised me was when you go into the internet browser on the computer, it’s actually got real internet, so you could check out the MKAU Gaming website or even watch the latest Youtube video on the MKAU Youtube, which you should do. The mechanical processes in this game are surprisingly impressive.

There is not too much you need to remember with the controls, and they are super simple to get a grip on. You have all your basic movement side of things, and then you have lots of clicking on the PC whilst you are streaming, and there are on-screen prompts if you somehow forget what you are doing. The controls felt friendly and optimised, which made the game mostly fluid.

I’m still waiting for someone to make a game like this with super realistic graphics. Until then, I will genuinely still be impressed though by the cartoonish feel, which also works well for most simulations. Still, though, there were some flaws in the graphics in the current build of this game. While streaming and looking at your webcam, it looks like it’s filmed on a potato.

Your hair has all these super bright highlights like you are Justin Timberlake with frosted tips back in the 2000s, no matter how much you upgraded your camera or internet. There needs to be a clearer quality upgrade to the visuals as you progress.I liked what the developers did with the mobile phones and applications on the computer with the logos looking familiar but with their own twist, to feel like something we are already so accustomed to.

Any game that runs all the famous memes as sounds such as uWu or Avada Kedavra in their streams as redeemable sounds is a winning game for me and had me laughing more times than I would like to admit. I was amused and disgusted by the audible grunts of the people around the township which sounded like’Simish’. It was weird language and often off-putting to be out and about. Apart from that, the general sound effects were quite simplistic, and there was not too much needed, so it definitely was not overdone.

Streamer Life Simulator 2 is one of those games you can get lost in for hours, which I definitely did. It’s also one of those games where you become super competitive, wanting to be the biggest and best streamer in the town. You can pick up this title for a reasonable price on Steam, which means great gameplay for your dollar.

Written by: Hayden Nelson