Viscera Cleanup Detail (2015)

Viscera Cleanup Detail doesn't pull punches like some of its more modern cousins: if the 'viscera' part of the ordeal didn't make it clear enough, the 'detail' might also catch you by surprise.

Made in 2014, Viscera Cleanup Detail is a cleaning simulator, perhaps one of the first of its genre, putting you in the boots of a Janitor tasked with cleaning the aftermath of some pretty gruesome stuff: alien invasions, madness, paranoia, virus outbreaks...

You're armed with a mop, a broom you can most often find around the places you're cleaning, a boombox to keep you company and three important machines giving you all the buckets you might need: one for the waste and the other for the water proper. No, don't worry, the giblets falling out of it are common. No, the company wants you to know that it isn't one of your fellow co-workers.

The game takes a bit to get used to and it will take you at least one firing to understand the DETAIL part of the title: at the end of every shift, after clocking out, you will need to have paid attention to MANY DETAILS. At the end of your shift you will:

• Count how many bullets were spent and found and how many bullet holes to match.
• The cause of death of anyone you've found.
• Log the ID Keys next to the bodies you've disposed of.
• How many things you've burned.
• How did you dispose of the body.
• How many aliens were found.
• What happened at the site.

Doing all of this will net you Employee of the Month in an almost 100% guaranteed way. And you want to be employee of the month, don't you?

I don't know, I wanted to like this a lot. But, I didn't like it. There is literally no explanation of what you're supposed to do and I spent 3hrs cleaning two levels only to get fired. After running around with the muckgyver making sure I scrubbed every single bit of the level, I find out I only got a bit over 50% of the level complete. Only after two massive failures did I look up what I might be doing wrong and I find out there's an entire different mode for the muckgyver, you're supposed to log the USB sticks at the same place you clock out, the plasma rifle is supposed to repair stuff (I thought it just set things on fire and made a mess), etc. No explanation of this anywhere. I still have no idea what the broom is for except for being an uncleanable mop. It took me a solid half hour of trying to stack boxes before I realized that elevator thing could be picked up and moved.

I don't have the patience to clean another world for an hour and a half only to be told I missed half the map. Maybe I should play power washer simulator instead.

Viscera Cleanup Detail is all about cleaning stuff. Nothing more. You take your little mop and broom and get to work. You do this for over twenty levels and expect to be bored out of your mind but surprisingly this is not the case. Surprisingly, it has a fairly good story you can follow in which you chase after the rogue janitor Bob and find his rotten corpse at the end. This alone gives you purpose to play this game, not turning it into a chore (pun intended).

Every level in Viscera Cleanup Detail is different and has a different theme, some special cleaning requirements and sometimes a different way of disposing of the waste collected in the level. The variation is high and although your objective stays the same throughout the whole game, it feels like you play a different game each level.

The graphics in this game are fair, they are bright and colorful. The music from the boombox is good and works nice on the background while you are working your ass off. Except for the “Polka” soundtrack, that one is god awfully horrible. The controls and physics in this game work quite well. Sometimes the game glitches like crazy because of two objects interfering to much but overall, it feels responsive and does what you want.

The game is intended to make you angry and make your life miserable with the chances of getting limbs and more gore instead of a bucket of water or a disposal bin, the chance of creating fires on the wall while welding bullet holes and of course, knocking over your blood-soaked bucket at the slightest touch. This is part of its charm. I am sure this game has a secret algorithm build into it that whenever you kick over a bucket, something nasty is coming out of one of the dispensers afterwards, just to remind you: “You screwed up and here is your punishment”.

The game has some issues like crashing, resetting your office at random and some game breaking bugs in which you detect trash or blood, but nothing is there, but overall, it is manageable and nothing to complain about. The fact that you realize that you are a janitor and you just f*king clean for twenty levels reminds you of this.

There are several DLC maps you can play in Viscera Cleanup Detail. You got the House of Horror which is a mix of all your favorite horror stories for you to clean up like the Evil Dead, Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. This one was my favorite. You got the Vulcan Affair, which is a huge, huge map with several special agent and spy references like Austin Powers and James Bond in which you can throw your trash in a pool full of sharks! You got Santa’s Rampage in which you have to clean the mess of Santa having a breakdown and murdering the sh!t out of his personnel and you got the Shadow Warrior Temple. This one I found least enjoyable because of the short duration and the fact that all the bins are in place and there are two incinerators, making it ridiculously easy.

The game is easily played solo but is, like many other games a lot more fun when playing together. Especially because you can see the other players wobbling back and forth. The walk cycle of the janitor character models is hilarious.

Like many other games, the biggest joy, and the reason I almost clocked eighty hours into this game, is collecting all the achievements. Because of this I now saw every square inch of the game, collected all the unique and fun items for my office and have the feeling that my janitor duty is finally complete, and I can get a life again.

Definitely recommend this game!

I always thought this was one of those novelty throwaway games.. something you buy for $4 and play for 10 minutes for a laugh, like Surgeon Simulator or something; not a 'serious' game.

I was wrong. This game is actually amazing. There's a lot of girth to it too, I've poured tens of hours into it and I've barely scratched the surface. The best thing about this game though is how chilled out it is. I'm struggling to think of anything comparable. It's the game to play for when you don't feel like gaming, when you feel like watching a movie or reading a book. Playing this game is like some soothing meditation.