I have played the first Lawn Mowing Simulator game across two consoles and PC. I poured dozens of hours into it when it was on Xbox Game Pass, to the point I then bought the game when it was subsequently removed from that service. I bought it again on PlayStation, and finished it a second time, and then bought it on Steam where I have accrued another nearly 200 hours. In case it wasn’t clear, I loved that first game. With that in mind, here are my early thoughts on… Lawn Mowing Simulator 2.
- There are new weedkilling and leaf blowing requirements. The string trimmer used for the weeds is the same as in the previous game. I have no strong feelings about the inclusion of the weeds; it’s just more of the same, this time on concrete. The leaf blowing is quite fun, not unlike the recently reviewed Lawn Care Simulator, or indeed one I did not review from last year called (wait for it) Leaf Blower Co., and incredibly satisfying game in its own right. Unfortunately, that’s about the only positive I can say.
- The game looks nicer… at least until you move. There is some very noticeable pop in and a far too short draw distance, even on my RTX 4080. There are low poly trees and particularly flat and ugly grass clippings. Speaking of, the grass is cut in a completely straight line, which is unnatural at best and downright immersion breaking at worst. When my character puts on a hat, she loses her hair, despite all the in-game character images allowing a ponytail and wide-brimmed hat combo. The third person animations are janky and sloppy. Every mowing job leaves behind a far too prominent line where you have mowed, meaning even small lawns
- The controls are incredibly clunky. The game suggests to use a controller, which I would have anyway, but it is still super difficult to turn on any sort of reliable curve, ie. around a tree base or garden bed. Playing around with sensitivity and deadzones does nothing to resolve this. Every level features a frustratingly restrictive boundary line, taking the form of an obnoxious red wall, which you cannot pass for more than five seconds before being teleported back to your truck. This means even in the process of actually doing the job (ie. getting behind the leaves to blow them onto the grass) the game will warn you, and then teleport you all the way back to your starting position, not even just near where you left the boundary. It’s a baffling decision.
- The in-game economy is a total mess. Contracts award a few hundred dollars, or at most a few thousand for a meticulous few (real life) hours of work, but purchasing mowers leads you well into the tens of thousands of dollars. Equipment wears down so quickly that you’ll also be spending a few hundred to recharge/refuel your tools, and repair the engines or replace the blades of your mowers with far too much regularity.
- There’s a huge amount of options and mechanics removed first game. There are far too many similar lawnmower types, seemingly at a ratio of 3:1 of ‘side ejection zero turn’ to the rest, certainly in the early game. There does not appear to be any upgrading equipment (ie. adding a mulcher or striping kit) trading in parts, instead of selling to buy new, training up employees (they currently ABSOLUTELY suck), fines on jobs (from destroying plants, collisions), cannot upgrade your home base or take monetary loans from the bank, etc. Meanwhile, the collision detection is far too strict. On those objects, up to and including tiny bumps of dirt or the above different coloured tiles, I don’t think I have done a single level without racking up a half dozen collision warnings. Even the smallest bump will throw up a warning that you are colliding with the environment, to the point I can only assume that something is not working as intended.
- Worst of all, nothing feels satisfying. I looked forward to the large jobs (ie. orchards or paddocks) in the first game because I knew I could relax, mow the lawn my way and be rewarded for it. In this sequel, the only metric that matters is time. So if the contract calls for 89% grass cutting, you would be an absolute fool to spend a second more getting even a tenth of a per cent higher than that, as you do not get rewarded, it will run down your clock, and you’ll still accrue damage for your equipment. This turns every contract into a a speedrun sprint: mow the lawn, string trimmer the weeds, blow the leaves off the property or onto the grass, haul it back to your truck.
- The game seems to be full of glitches. A major new mechanic was the ability to drag a tarpaulin around to collect leaves, but I have not seen this in my game at all. There does not appear to be a way to ‘sway’ the leafblower, which the game tells you can save battery power. There are visual markers (blue sparkles, different coloured checkmarks) on the contract acceptance board, but it is never explained what these are
This game currently feels like the developers’ first game, and this is the same team who did the first game. As it stands right now, Lawn Mowing Simulator 2 is a massive, near unbelievable downgrade from the first game, and I have never been more disappointed. I was told to use the phrase ‘grass half full’, but that is far too good a joke for this game as it is right now.
