You Suck at Parking Review

You Suck at Parking is a top-down cute arcade driving game which you try to “park” the car, in the initial 30 minutes you’ll be spinning around, running out of fuel and crashing into barriers, that’s part of the appeal of the game, failing and failing again and then eventually sweet OH SO sweet success.

You Traverse over small yet well designed levels with each level lasting only a couple of minutes, the aim being to find the two or three parking spaces and stop within or just on the lines, you must accomplish this task within a time limit and without running out of fuel, if you crash, fall off a cliff or even explode into lots of little pieces you can instantly respawn and press on or restart the level to aim for the perfect golden score both are instantaneous and this lack of loading helps the whole game feel so smooth. Curiously though there’s no reverse gear, overshoot the space and nose into a barrier and that is a full reset for you, you zip between each failed attempt trying and trying again to park in each level spaces without the need for a second attempt, there’s even a semi-open world that you navigate finding each new environment which contains groups of levels acquiring all golden spots isn’t a necessity, in order to progress you just need to park in each space within the generous time allowance, though the feeling of getting three stars in each level is so satisfying.

Each map ramps up the preposterous nature with giant magnets that pull you off the ideal trajectory or boxing gloves that push you off the edge, it gets to the point where you need a handful of runs just to find out where the parking spots are never mind perfecting your first run yet this cute driving game never gets frustrating enough to give in, there do seem to be some difficulty spikes; sometimes you can be stuck on one challenge for half an hour then ace the next one with your eyes shut but generally it teeters on the right side of achievable, equally the vehicle handling is benign; its approachability tempered slightly by an ultimate lack of precision, the slightly elastic responses to at least leave a margin for error with over a hundred levels out of the box and more promised post release.

The Ingenuity of the level design never fails to surprise; just when you think you’re in the swing of things police chases are thrown into the mix or you get turned into an ice cube, the vehicle choice is slender and there’s no performance advantage to switching between a saloon and a van for example, speaking of cosmetic changes however there is a parking pass which works just like rocket League’s rocket pass, as you play through the challenges or online matches you progress through levels that in turn unlock items to refresh the look of your vehicle be it paint colors, livery stripes trails and explosions, there is of course a paid option with even more visual fripperies and these will refresh every season either you don’t give a monkey or you’ll be mad into this, it’s non-essential so more power to the development team for finding a way that potentially earns revenue without restricting play or offering paid levels there is also a suite of cosmetic upgrade packs to buy outright too if that’s your thing.

Of course, the real long-term appeal for parking pass will be the online multiplayer; something not part of the initial demo that launched way back in early 2021. The mode followed the game’s delay into 2022 and subsequent increased investment up to eight players in total to take to some of the wackier level designs in the game across four rounds with the aim of parking in all nine spots first, it’s hilarious manic and in effect the video game form of boxing day sale car parking scrimmages unlike the real world however mercifully you don’t get embroiled in a shouting match or worse an angry letter from an insurance company, combined with the XP dished out in the parking pass progress this is designed to be the main dopamine hit that keeps you coming back to the game time after time.

Overall, You Suck at Parking is super fun to play with awesome level design and addictive gameplay mechanics, especially with the developers promising continuous support long after initial launch it’s an easy recommendation from us.

Purchase You Suck at Parking on Steam!