Manic Mechanics Review

Developed by 4J Studios and released on the 7th of March, Manic Mechanics is a casual co-op game focused on fixing multiple different problems in cars with up to three of your friends. It’s very similar, both in gameplay and in graphics, to Overcooked and Overcooked 2, both of which I really like, so I was pretty excited to try it out.

Manic Mechanics only has a basic plot and character dialogue can be interesting sometimes, but the story is mostly unenticing and not really the main point of the game. You go around six different neighbourhoods on Octane Island and challenge the Master Mechanics in each area. The lack of an exciting story isn’t an issue, though, as the main point of a couch co-op experience like this is gameplay.

Speaking of the gameplay, it’s not that complicated: every level has a different layout, and you need to fix cars that arrive in the garage. Every car has three parts that need replacing, and the parts for each vehicle are randomised from possible ones in the stage. Sometimes, the Master Mechanic of the current area might try to sabotage you in multiple different ways. Each part that needs fixing has a different way to solve the issue: doors need to be painted, batteries need to be charged, etc. Eventually, things need to be combined too — some cars require an electric engine, which means you will have to charge a battery and combine it with a regular engine. The floor slowly gets dirty from all of the fixing you do; once it’s dirty enough, it gets slippery, and you will have to clean it to be able to move normally. There isn’t any part of Manic Mechanics that is too hard, so nothing took my friends and me more than a couple of tries. It’s overall really fun, so definitely a great aspect of the game. 

Some stages are pretty frustrating, though, even if they’re not hard. Layouts can be completely nonsensical, and traversing some of these maps is genuinely terrible. While we needed to assign specific tasks to each player to have any hopes of gaining three stars (or cogs, as they are called by the developers) in all levels, this game can easily be completed in single-player because of the lower difficulty when playing with friends. But, even then, playing alone feels way too stressful, which isn’t exactly fun, so I wouldn’t recommend it if none of your friends want to try it with you.

The game’s third-person perspective and top-down view are cute and fit pretty well with the chaotic and child-like theme of the game. Nothing ever feels too serious or complicated, and while not exactly calming, Manic Mechanics didn’t ever make me genuinely stressed. The animations are all simple, but do what they try to, so it all feels very natural and overall is a pleasant experience. The game’s optimisation is also very good, and neither I nor my friends had any sort of issue with FPS drops or stuttering.

There are sound effects for different things you do within the game, and they all sound pretty good. They all sound natural and fit in with the overall feel of the game, so it’s pretty fun to hear them. There’s also music in Manic Mechanics, and while not exactly something I’d play on my Spotify while driving, or fixing cars for that matter, it’s definitely nice to listen to, and I never once wanted to mute it and replace it with my own. There is a slight issue with it, though, and it might come from the music being too good — the warning of only a few seconds left is part of the music and feels like just a genuine segment of it, so neither I nor my friends could notice that we were running out of time, even after playing through so many levels.

Now, although the game is definitely good, there are some problems with it, and pretty annoying ones at that: first, your audio settings don’t kick in until after the game’s boot-up animation, completely destroying your ears when you launch it. Anyone who’s played Dishonored knows how painful this thing can be, especially with how sharp game developers make their bootup animation sounds for some reason. The second and more relevant problem is that one of my friends had random crashes occurring while playing the game. It’s not an optimisation issue — he has an RTX 3060, which is definitely more than enough. We still couldn’t figure out what it was, and other than that, it always ran completely fine. The app window is also called Blonde for some reason, but that’s not a problem at all; it’s just weird.

Overall, then, Manic Mechanics is a pretty good game. It absolutely has some issues and isn’t perfect at all, but I could definitely see myself enjoying it and maybe asking more of my friends to play it with me. There are some really nice aspects of the game, but there are some very annoying problems with it. I can’t say it’s a bad game in the slightest, though £19.99 might be a bit too expensive for it, especially since it’s not really long.