Mr Prepper PC Review: Preparation Is Key
Time is of the essence for Mr Prepper, but we’re going to need a fair amount of the stuff to reach our protagonist’s rocket-building goals. Preparation is key in this soon-to-be apocalyptic world, and The Man will do whatever it takes to hamper your progress.
Time to stick it to him.
The events occur in suburbia, and our brown leather jacket-wearing Jack-of-all-trades is preparing for the worst. And what could be worse when Albert Wesker pops round to rummage through Preps’ underwear drawer looking for contraband? That’s right: a government agent will periodically inspect his property to uncover any irregularities and ensure their home conforms to governmental standards.
Inspections are once a week, but if items on their list disappear, or we’re adding a luxury item like a poster, the agent will visit more frequently. Raise your suspicion levels to the max, and Mr Prepper will be arrested, hung from his testicles, and other ungodly things that spell a game over. The solution? Hide stuff in his underground bunker.
Our hero’s bunker is pretty damn satisfying as he’ll be able to compartmentalise all his gear – from a greenhouse to a rocket silo. Y’know, the standard stuff. It’s all very Fallout Shelter-like; only the invasions here are bureaucratic ones. As long as Preps is in on inspection day, covers up his bunker’s opening and not carrying or wearing anything dodgy, he’ll be fine.
Said bunker is where we’ll store Mr Prepper’s food and water, as well as generators for when the power will ‘erratically’ cut off. None of this is above board, so the goal is to trade with the locals outside Preps’ home via the mailbox. Here we’ll be able to sell excess wares, purchase books that unlock new skills (there’s no levelling up in the game), or build to order furnishing to make a quick buck.
There comes the point where there’s nothing left to trade, so venture off into the woods, mines and desert to uncover materials for crafting, food for eating, or locating quest items to progress in the game. Besides getting enough sleep and food to sustain ‘preparedness’, the main objective is to get out of Dodge by building a rocket. Easy.
The daily grind in Mr Prepper is enjoyable if you’re open to it and don’t mind the repetition of sourcing materials or speeding up the game so that a neighbour replenishes their stock. By far, the weak link in the game was the driving element. It was unresponsive, monotonous and had erratic collision detection. It took an age to get enough fuel to travel, and the car is made of cheese: a few dings and Preps will return to the start, thus losing all fuel, plus needing a batch of metal for repairs.
Due to the lack of manual saves, we’ll have to repeat a day from scratch if arrested or ballsing up on the driving aspect. We have to wait until nighttime for an autosave to save the game. Not life-threatening stuff, but it’s enough of a niggle to be irritating. Besides that, Mr Prepper is an entertaining, if repetitive survival/resource management game.
Mr Prepper recently launched on the Xbox, but a PC version was kindly supplied not to miss out on it. Rejected Games’ title is the kind of game I’d find in a sale and end up adding to my basket then playing more than the games I sought out. It’s addictive, immersive, and somewhat hypnotic with that repetitive grind day in, day out. It’s a nice looking game, too. However, Kate and Karen are the same and have shifty eyes. Just sayin’.
If you’re getting even the slightest tingle that this might be for you, go check out the Steam page and download the demo (available at the time of writing) and see if it’s for you. Though the objectives get a little more drawn out in the latter part of the game, you’ll more or less see everything in the demo. If that gets you going, you know what’s in store for the remainder. The apocalypse ain’t lookin’ all that bad…