We're back again with another terribly written review for another terribly made game.

A little about the devs...

OTTO Games, a Turkish game development company founded in 2018, released Auto Sales Life in March 2024 and has 2 other games lined up for the future. They are a small company with over 7 years of experience that claims to make many different games across mobile, PC, and VR. Most of which I can't find. Only 3 are on Steam, and apparently, according to their website, they made a mobile game with Turkish Aerospace Industries, one of the leading companies in the defence industry there. Which is nowhere to be found.

Starting the game auto-loads Steam VR. This is not a VR game. I hope this was not their claim to making a VR game.

There really is little about this company and the games they made before this. And now suddenly their site is down, I wonder if it has anything to do with the scrutiny this game has been receiving since its release.

Well, here goes... (WARNING: This review is a detailed step-by-step of the experiences I had while playing and my feelings on them)

The game starts with the weirdest out-of-context intro of a man lying in bed and then switches to a man and woman, who is dressed in her wedding dress, standing by a city river, and a fancy sports car, saying she won't leave, but then says "John, please don't leave me" over again. At the same time, you have flashbacks of your expensive sports car? Why? I don't know, your guess is as good as mine.

So, you wake up in this lavish, modern, yet quite small home. Everything looks very expensive, but it's kinda hard to enjoy walking around the place, as my body and head bobbed around like a bobblehead. This is where you think, maybe it is a VR game? Nope, it's just weird.

Once I got over the movement, I explored my house more and found 2 cats in my house, I was so happy. I walked over only to realize. I can't interact with them! At least, let me pet the damn cats. What's the point otherwise? I was disappointed, and I hadn't even left the front door yet.

Shortly after, you receive a phone call from a "friend" who claims to have found your wife's car after she died. Hang on... so she died? I thought you left her, or she left you. I don't even know anymore. The scripting is so badly written, and to top it off, it's horrendous AI voices too.

I drove over to the showroom where my friend found this car and paid 75k! Finding not only more cats but also dogs too! They sit there, not letting me pet them.

Then I drove it back and was made to go to bed. I guess we don't care about the expensive sports car I just left out there. Pfft, who needs it? Not me, apparently.

The driving is absolutely appalling. It's bad enough that this game is keyboard and mouse only, but the steering and responses to turns are just heinous.

Driving through the city made it feel like I was in an empty GTA 3 skeleton city that was designed during a lunch break on a Sunday. (but much smaller), Not many details added to the roads, generic cars and buildings, hardly any people around and a directional arrow pointing to where I needed to go, in the wrong direction. *Blinks*

This game already has so many red flags, I needed to see what else was wrong with it.

Soooo, now I'm in prison and for some reason topless, on my first day, I must have lost my shirt during the arrest. I walk downstairs, and there is a dude (also topless) with an incredibly glossy head, and I'm sure I can see the wall behind him through his neck, but I won't question this. Apparently, he knows me, and he was also set up by the same "friend". The whole time he is talking to me, he's looking around, moving his hands, not one lip parted.

While walking around the prison cafeteria, I noticed one thing: everyone there looks like a grandad in a retirement home, the guards and other inmates are all at least in their 70s +, a few wearing flat caps, some in tracksuits and one very dapper dude in a fedora, all looking like generic characters very out of place for where we are. and the dude at the end of the hall has been walking into the counter for a solid 7 mins. And you can't interact with anyone else here.

Everything looks very generic, and nothing stands out so far for being a game that's had time and care put into it.

So I guess I finally got to the point where the game actually starts....

After a cut scene from doing 1 side mission in the prison to steal some notes, I was loaded into a very run-down, incredibly poor-looking home. Quite the contrast from my first home, for some reason, I can see the wall behind the old TV inside the TV. I won't question that either.

I was sent outside to buy my first gallery, costing me 30k out of my 35k starting money. Then told to buy some cars. "I'm hungry", my dude said as I heard his stomach grumble. Alright mate, let's go to the shop-looking stall thingy in the empty lot that I'm supposed to be buying cars from. The shop had a few things, and the first thing I thought was, These are a bit expensive and don't seem to replenish much hunger. For me to fulfil hunger from 0, I would need to buy 2 pizzas and a hot dog, costing $475. At this point, I just bought one pizza and headed over to buy the cars behind me.

anyone fancy a clown fish?

Everyone in the lot just appeared; they didn't drive in. They just materialised. I had a look around and realised I wasn't experienced enough to purchase many of the cars in the lot, only 3 of them I could buy, so I bought 3 and drove them back to my gallery. I told you the driving is balls, right? I scraped a car on the way back and was told I now need to repair it before I can sell, which seems logical, but this also costs money. I eventually got both cars back to the lot after getting lost cause the map is also balls. Now I'm broke, but I need money to repair the cars. And suddenly hungry again.

"I'M HUNGRY"

"I WILL FAINT" ... damn, its getting serious

I decided to call a cab to a pizza shop, where you would expect to buy food, right? well, apparently not, I can only work and deliver pizzas for EXTORTIONATE delivery prices, I would not order if I lived there. I was roped into a mini game where I had to deliver 14 pizzas within a time frame. While my dude kept telling me he was hungry and was gonna faint.

I think I was fainting while riding the bike, as the screen would black out for a moment, but my hunger didn't change. I finally finished my deliveries, and the pizza shop still didn't have any food to sell me, so strange. I was halfway across the city and found no other stores between me and my home. Mostly cause every building I went past was the same repeated empty shell stores. I ran home cause I was "sleepy"

floating plant pot?

The next day, I repaired my cars and sold them. I made about a $60 profit on each car. Not even enough for a hot dog for each car.  *le sigh*

But where is the money? It hasn't shown up yet, I'm broke and hungry, I can't afford a cab, and I don't even have enough for an apple in the store.

"I'M HUNGRY" ... I know, mate, I know

I slept, thinking maybe I need a day to pass for the money to come in from the sales. Nope, nothing, now I'm really hungry and he's threatening to faint again.

I'm broke, no cars to sell and no sight of this money to come. so I look for the pizza shop again, which I can't find, cause again, the map is balls and doesn't show you where the pizza store is on the map.

Apparently, the game says I can steal a car, yet I can't find any. So, I can steal a car but not an apple for my hungry, fainting self.

This is kinda where I gave up on the game. I played enough to realise what a disaster it is.

"I'M HUNGRY" .. I don't care anymore

I will say one positive thing while I'm here. The radio stations were decent. All 2 songs on repeat for all stations, but it was good while it was on before I got bored again.

General notes about the game..

The story was confusing, and I'm convinced written by AI with bad prompts, as it was all over the place.

The voice acting was all bad AI, the cadence was off, and everyone is a ventriloquist

The graphics were generic and nothing special. pretty much just free assets poorly placed around with no effort on how they looked. OH, I didn't mention the building inside the building!.... TADA

The UI is terrible. Most of it is self-explanatory, but a lot of unnecessary, ugly buttons and tabs on the screen that don't even work

The map, well, it was balls, it didn't show most of what I was looking for, the markers never stuck, and the directional arrow either showed the wrong direction or pointed towards the building straight ahead.

Driving response for the car and bike felt clunky and unresponsive.

The music was ok, probably the best thing in the game. 5 music stations, 2 songs on each station. no host chatter, just repeated songs.

Broken achievements, my first achievement was to sell my first car, which popped when I bought my first car, a few steps before even being able to sell it yet.

I had a look at the Steam reviews to see what people were saying about the game, and I see Steam says it's "mostly positive", it's really not when you have a look at them, most claim the game to be a scam and the reviews to be fake. I would hate to agree with them, but it's hard not to after playing it. There is 1 update since the game's official release, which was a new car. Nothing about improving the game. It feels like they threw something out for a quick buck before moving on to the next project.

I really have a soft spot for small dev companies and try to keep an open mind on how they work and the dedication they put into their games, but I'm struggling with this one. There's no soul, no effort or dedication here. 

-1/5 star .. not worth $9.99 at all.

Game title: Auto Sale Life

Developer: OTTO Games

Release Date: 12th March 2025

OS: Windows 10

Platform: Steam

Steam Price: $9.99