I thought I knew what to expect from Cozy Radiation Cleaner going in, not just by its name but also after perusing screenshots. Turns out that name isn’t quite as self-explanatory as it may seem. In fact, it’s a little misleading. I wholly expected to be decontaminating radiated zones using specialist equipment in something that plays like a combination of PowerWash Simulator and House Flipper. Instead, it has more in common with good old ‘hide and seek’ – over 150 radiated items are spread throughout a colossal wasteland, and it’s your job to seek ‘em.
It’s a cleaning game in the loosest definition imaginable; only by collecting every item – a quest that will take a lot of perseverance – will the wasteland be free from radiation. Although, that radiation isn’t exactly gone. More swept under the carpet, like in an episode of The Simpsons.
This collectathon begins with the briefest of introductions, handing you a Geiger counter that emits a familiar crackle when an item is near, a flashlight to overcome the day/night cycle, and the keys to a 4×4. You’re then left – and never interrupted ever again – to roam the wasteland, which is formed from countless shrubs and trees, hilly terrain, and sporadically placed structures that have an ill-fitting industrial sci-fi slant. Radiated items fall into several categories and are highlighted from a good mile away by a large, floating, nuclear symbol. There’s a catalogue to populate, and once taken back to the HQ, they decorate the floors and walls. How you’re supposed to operate from an HQ full of hazardous materials is beyond me.
Where to begin with this one? Well, the map doesn’t allow for waypoints and doesn’t even show the HQ; so, if you happen to forget where the starting position was, all you can do is hope you’ll come across it again somewhen. When exiting the 4×4, too, you’ll need to keep track of where you left it, as that doesn’t feature on the map either. And while the map can be activated when driving, it obscures the screen almost completely. Thankfully, the wasteland is so incredibly barren that you can go some distance without ever colliding with anything. There’s no way to tell exactly where you are on the map by region alone, though, as every area looks identical.
I would even say that the ‘cosy’ part of the game’s title is edging towards misleading – especially when you’re forced to contend with tornado warnings every five minutes. Fail to outrun a storm and you’ll be haphazardly spun around for a minute or so before being chucked a dozen metres through the air. Rain and thunderstorms must be endured too, inching more into cosy territory but never completely. This leaves just the chilled music selection, which is one of the game’s better features, even if the 4×4’s engine has a habit of drowning the music out. Also quite jarring is the fact that there’s no music when exiting the vehicle to collect items. As they tend to appear in clusters of 3-4, you’ll repeatedly go from hearing music, to silence, then music, and then silence again ad nauseam. Why the vehicle’s radio couldn’t be heard while searching on foot is a mystery. In fact, this would have helped with tracking it down should you wander too far.
Now seems a good time to mention that Cozy Radiation Cleaner is littered with easy achievements. For the first couple of hours, barely five minutes goes by without unlocking one or two. After you start to make headway, they unlock less frequently as items start to become harder to find and more spread out, forcing you to head into undiscovered areas of the map and simply hope that you’ll find every item within a region before heading to the next. Having to track down the last few items will doubtlessly be an absolute struggle for anyone looking to achieve 100% completion. Real needle in a haystack stuff.
Cozy Radiation Cleaner looks and plays like a project where work has only just begun. The basics are here, but no effort has been applied anywhere else. There’s no environmental storytelling, or environments that are in any way varied or interesting. It’s just you, a vast barren map, and a list of items to (hopefully) stumble across. The 40-second-long trailer on the Xbox Store shows everything on offer in its first 20 seconds; it’s the perfect summary of what Cozy Radiation Cleaner entails and what you’ll be doing for the 3-4 hours it takes to “cleanse” the wasteland. Or rather, haul all that junk back to the HQ to be admired.
The only thing preventing me from scoring it lower is that the vehicle physics are competent, in the sense that it can be fun to thrash the 4×4 about, and that the UI is clear and readable. Even if this had graced the N64 back in 1998 – a comparison I’m making as its barren wasteland reminds me of Body Harvest – critics would have had trouble thinking of positives to mention.
SilverSet Studios’ Cozy Radiation Cleaner is out now on Xbox Series. A PC version is also available.