The most important thing to know about Bay 12: Mech Repair is that these are mechs of the MechWarrior or possibly Patlabor school – that is, basically WW2 tanks on hydraulic legs, with cockpits full of switches and wireframe displays. Their bodies are assemblages of pistons and reactors. They are not biomechs like the ones in Evangelion. An Evangelion Repair game would be… different. Less industrial, more Oedipal. You would dread removing the smallest piece of housing.
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Which isn’t to say that Bay 12: Mech Repair represents life on Easy Street, exactly. There’s a big war happening outside, its fortunes palpable in the minced leg joints and pocked torsos of the war-bots lowered into your hangar. You’re also fed details about the lives of pilots when you accept a work order. Lieutenant Iona Vale of the 3rd Recon Company says there’s “left leg hesitation after extended operation”, especially at higher temperatures. That sure sounds like a thing that could get Lieutenant Iona Vale killed.
It’s not clear whether you can diagnose faults incorrectly, and shape the progress of the conflict, but the context brings extra emotional charge to what might otherwise be a cosy process of glueing together very expensive Air-Fix models, for all the sense of scale.
Bay 12: Mech Repair follows a familiar flow, as job sims go. Banged-up Iron Giants arrive in a steady procession. You figure out what’s wrong with them based on scans, pilot reports, and so forth. Then you get out there with a welder, drill and spanner to make it right. Busted parts can be salvaged for scrap for custom components. Completed work orders net you credits that must be divided between restocking your inventory and buying new tools.
You also have the option of clearing away rust and applying a new paintjob. I’m fascinated to know if this has any real impact on either the story or your fortunes, because I guarantee that I am going to spend far more time obsessing over dazzle camouflage than giving the ol’ actuators a haircut.
Read more on Steam. The devs, Crimson Herring Studios, are them wot did Sovereign Syndicate, an apparently decent Victorian fantasy RPG that we never found time to review. Look, I am not made of thumbs and eyeballs. As for the daunting possibility of an Evangelion Fixing Sim, the recently announced Valkyrie Iteration gets into some of the squirming detail, there.