You Suck at Parking [Xbox]
Developed and published by Happy Volcano, You Suck at Parking is an unusual take on a driving/racing game, in that your aim here isn’t about how fast you can go, but how accurate you can stop. Each level will have a bunch of parking spaces for you to find and successfully park your car in, which seems somewhat easier than it actually is. The control of your car is slightly wobbly, in an intentional way that manages to feel satisfying as you get to grips with it. The first few levels you attempt, you’ll no doubt crash and burn or fly off of the edge of the track, but once you get used to the pull, it makes it feel even better when you successfully whip round a corner and into a parking spot.
You’ve got a limited amount of petrol to get you to each space, and with no ability to reverse, you’ll have to only drive forward and manoeuvre to get into spaces (even if you only just touch the spot). Slowing down too much puts you at risk too, as the petrol seems to drain based on time rather than speed - taking your finger off the accelerator when going down hills or over boost pads will still whittle away at your available fuel. Slowing to a stop will count as you parking, so if you’re not quite on a parking spot, then too bad, that’s a car wasted…
Levels increase in difficulty and complexity as you progress, with boost pads, powerful fans and portals that teleport you from one part of the level to another to change things up; hazards such as mines, explosive laser barriers and hammers to give you a hard time; and police cars that can hunt you down, busting you if you get caught speeding through red lights (which you have no choice but to do). You’ll also find that some levels have other cars that drive around, potentially bumping your already parked cars out of the space - and getting all of your cars parked without wasting any will get you a ‘Perfect Park’, the ideal gold rating.
The online multiplayer sees you and up to 7 other players in a race to see who can successfully park in all of the spaces first - with the ability to completely hinder other players by getting in their way and bumping them out of spaces and off of the edge of levels. You’ll work through a few randomly chosen maps in a series of rounds in a quest to beat the other players in your lobby, and it can be a blast to play - though can feel a bit repetitive after a while. There’s no friend option for multiplayer as of yet, but hopefully this should be added at some point in the near future. There are leaderboards for you to compare against friends for the campaign levels, as well as to encourage you to climb the ranks by replaying levels to get all Perfect Parks, and to reduce the amount of time you take to get there.
The visual style is really cute, with blocky vehicles and brightly coloured, adorably detailed levels. There’s an overworld that you can drive around to find each batch of levels, and this too feels great to explore, with different sights to see and cannons to blast you to the next islands. Mastery Islands can also be found once you’ve completed a certain amount of levels, and these ramp up the challenge considerably. The soundtrack is fantastic but slightly limited, with the music only changing as you move on to new islands. Thankfully the tunes are soothingly catchy, and instantly reminded both of us of listening to MGMT back in high school.
An unexpected choice was the inclusion of a ‘Parking Pass’, with a free tier (that doesn’t quite include much) and a Premium version for £7.49. I know that loads of online games have some form of Season Pass included now, but it feels like this is a bit unnecessary here, especially alongside the additional cosmetic purchases available in the store. These range from the £1.69 Kickstart Paint Pack, to the £5.49 Brick and mortar pack, so to get all of the items you’ll be spending easily over £20… and that’s only going from what’s available currently. This ended up leaving us feeling quite frustrated, as despite the fact that all of these things are purely cosmetic - and optional - it’s annoying that there’s so little to unlock for free just through play.
Priced at £16.99 on Xbox, though currently playable for free via Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, You Suck at Parking is a brilliantly entertaining game, and with plans for the developers to continue adding to it over time, it’s set to only get better. Playing with your friends is set to be added this month, so hopefully we’ll continue to see even more in the future. We’d highly recommend everyone to give You Suck at Parking a go - especially if you’ve got Game Pass Ultimate, since you don’t even have to take a risk by spending the extra to play!
In the end, we decided to give You Suck at Parking the Collecting Asylum rating of 8/10.
Are you interested in You Suck at Parking? What do you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to RenaissancePR for the You Suck at Parking Xbox review code!
