Oct 25

Oct 25 Review | Youtubers Life 2 - Clickbait

I was recently given the opportunity to play Youtubers Life 2 on Nintendo Switch. Youtubers Life 2 is a simulation game, in which you create your very own Youtuber, and rise to fame through filming and editing videos, and posting on social media to try and acquire as many likes and subscribers as possible. Of course, they have named things completely different in-game, such as legally distinct NewTube and InstaLife. I am saying this upfront as a disclaimer, rather than claiming to know about versions of the game I did not play, but I feel that there was a very clear quality issue playing this game on Nintendo Switch. I cannot comment on versions of the game on other platforms, such as PC, but on Switch, Youtubers Life 2 suffers from a wealth of issues.

“Hi welcome to the neighbourhood. Please Like and Subscribe. It is the only way to ease my eternal torment! :)”

At the start of the game, you move to a bustling town called NewTube City, where all of the content creators go to live. Once you get past that terrifying dystopian concept the game can begin!

You are helped by your agent, who guides you through the tutorial process and helps you make your first video. There are a set of reactions that you can have to each prompt, which will build up different reactions from your audience. There are five in total, and the goal is to try and max each emotion in a video if possible. From there, you go to your PC and edit.

Editing is pretty easy, as there are be a series of clips to choose between from your recording and you have to try and fit them together to make the best video possible. There will be little tags on each of the clips that serve as a guide for which clips go where. The player will have to make sure to try multiple combinations, as the scoring of your video matters! I found this mini-game-style activity really fun. It does get repetitive, but it is also very quick and easy to do.

Thinking back to *the good old days*.
By which I mean that time Ninja tried to make Time Square floss and was greeted with the confused glares several thousand New Yorkers.

The town is open and you are able to run through it, film in different locations, and pick up food at restaurants. However, navigating the town can be a bit difficult, even with the help of the map it is a bit unclear where everything is. You only run at one speed and there is no option to move faster, which can make travelling very slow. The loading screens are also incredibly slow, to the point it had me wondering sometimes if my Switch had crashed. The text speed is also pretty slow and can take a long time to get through a conversation, slowing things down even further.

Some of the quests aren’t as self-explanatory as they first appear. For example, I picked up a sidequest to meet ten people in the community. The quest description said to speak to people who “look interesting”, which seems to be a matter of personal opinion really. But I carried on anyway, however, even though I found plenty of people, I could interact with hardly any of them, and in reality, it was only a handful of cherry-picked NPCs that I could talk to. This really made the quest much longer than it needed to be, as I then had to traverse the entire map to try and find these ten specific people. It wasted so much more time than it needed to, that by the time I got past that side mission I ended up just sticking to main quests and letting the sidequest happen in their own time.

Turns out the lizard people weren’t infiltrating our government but influencers circles.

We were sent a review copy of the game, which we were told didn’t feature VO from certain real-life Youtubers and other minor features, but even given that, it feels like there isn’t really that much to do in Youtubers Life 2. Things are padded out with customisation and a semi-open world with plenty of interaction, but the game itself feels very linear, with a limited amount of things to do. Whilst there are plenty of ‘games’ for your Youtuber to play and review, it is the same couple of motions and mechanics over and over again.

I will admit, I did struggle to get fully invested in the game because it felt like I was playing the lesser version from the start, but everything in this game was so very slow. Between long loading screens, and the game freezing in places, the overall experience of Youtubers Life 2 feels flawed on the Switch and the game itself rarely feels like it is worth forcing your way through these issues to see.

Youtubers Life 2 will be good for people of all ages, and I think that the retail release will most likely be a better experience. I am still somewhat interested in the game and will go back to it at a later date, but right now it has not grabbed my attention.