Disregarded Demographics: Car Salesmen

Driving games are common as muck.  No matter what sort of vehicle you want to plow around in: NASCAR models, rally cars, Formula 1 machines, trucks, taxis or buses, there’s a game for it on the market.  It’s a genre that you love or hate, or in my case it’s one I’d like to love, but I’m borderline appalling at them and so it’s best not to bother.

Through all these games we generally only take on the role of the driver.  Well, that is the exciting bit, after all.  At this point I might have started yapping about pit stop crews, but from the looks of the promotional trailer Microsoft will have all your wheel-screwing needs fulfilled with Natal.  We can instead take the ignorance a few further steps back in the process.  Contrary to what in-game shops might tell you, cars do not generally magically appear after clicking a few menu options.  The car salesman patiently awaits his turn at entering the world of videogames.

Your job as car salesman needs no real explanation.  As cars can be seen as fashion items, I’ve been inspired to borrow/rip off the general framework for this from Nintendo’s Style Boutique.  Actually, let’s just do it on the same format, DS, and licence the engine.  Or just find a way to steal it, since Nintendo is so protective of their work.  Replace all the clothes with cars and numerous car parts and accessories and…voila!

Working on commission is tough, but such is the life in this line of employment.  Therefore it’s your job to badger people into buying as much as possible with their vehicle.  The basic model is where you start off.  Customers will turn up at your emporium ’”initially a scrap yard, eventually a marble showroom of glitz and glamour’” and tell you what sort of car they’re after.  It’s then up to you to find something that matches their specifications as closely as possible while earning yourself a tidy profit.  That done, you can then try to add extra feathers to your hat by getting them to include as many extras as possible.  Fluffy dice, 20-inch rims, spoilers, radios are all the standard sort of the thing on the table, but if you want to get the big bucks you’ll persuade them to Pimp Your Ride-it-up and purchase all manner of TV’s, jacuzzis and sound systems for no actual justifiable reason whatsoever.

Scrabbling for sales on the fly is fun and all, but you might also try your hand at creating custom monstrosities before any customers even turn up.  This gives you the creative freedom to make whatever the hell you want.  Perhaps you could smash a Suzuki Swift up a bit until it resembles a poor man’s replica F1 car, lob a miniature Eiffel Tower on the top of it and put a waffle maker in the glove compartment.  The point being, of course, to create something desirable but unique so that you might stand a chance of selling it at a premium rate.  That Suzuki isn’t going to sell, then.

This also provides a suitable use for the little ol’ DS’s touch screen.  It’s never been easier to fiddle with cars than by tapping and dragging bits around, tightening them on with circular stylus screw motions or spray painting with generous swipes at the screen.  Want to hammer a vehicle into new shapes, as the example above? Tap where you want to smack until it’s as you want it.  With an ever-ready tool box at your disposal, the touch screen makes for the perfect workshop.  Honest usage isn’t the only thing on the cards, however.  To make cars more attractive to buyers you could fiddle with the mileage clocks to give the impression of less travel than has actually happened.  Or if that engine’s sounding a bit off, pull a Matilda and pour a little sawdust in to make it purr for long enough to be sold.  Blow off the excess with the microphone!

Much like the online shops in Style Boutique, you can also log onto the Nintendo WiFi Connection to sell and buy automobiles to other players.  Our car salesman game, though, would employ an extra, more-than-likely-data-protection-law-breaking mode.  If you’ve got a DSi, point the camera at any licence plate you see on the street.  The system will then attempt to scan the number and submit it to one of those car valuation services that are constantly advertised on UK TV at the moment.  Using this information, a replica of that car, along with an estimated price, will be put into your game to sell to virtual customers or online to other players.  It adds a whole new collecting dimension to the sale-’em-up: gotta – ugh – car-tch ‘em all!

Images: Local Carsales, LuxuryCarPictures, AutometricsMotorSports