Smooth Operators 2

Disclaimer: I helped with testing for the game during late development and appear in the credits. My actual playtime is much higher than what's seen here in Steam.
That said, here is my complete and *honest* opinion of the game as it is upon release:

If you enjoy simulation, logistic, & resource-management games like I do (some favorites including the classic Sim Tower, Freight Tycoon Inc, Two Point Hospital, etc.), then I can definitely recommend Smooth Operators 2 to you. It's a fun addition to the genre that you can easily sink hours of time into. If you *don't* like those types of games, then you may find the gameplay too slow or repetetive perhaps. You have to be the type of player that likes setting their own goals and the feedback loop of expanding their business and building further. You also have to be the patient type; it's a bit slow starting out when it's hard to eke out a profit, and you may fail the first few times and need to restart your business. But that's part of the challenge of it, and I can accept that! The game pace isn't too fast and stressful but also doesn't bore you to sleep. xD

It's a joy to watch your call center employees buzzing around the tower doing their daily duties. The sound effects & music are mesmerizing while you're managing everything, the UI is informative without being too complicated or clunky, and the art style is super charming.

Also, there is a cute dog.

As of writing this, the developer is super active and receptive to feedback, fixes bugs quickly after they're reported, and often adds new game features that are suggested by players if they're feasible.

Is this a sequel? A remake? In short, I'd consider it a remake.
-- If you played the original Smooth Operators and enjoyed it, I'd say it's worth picking this one up because it improves and expands upon on a lot of mechanics from the original.
-- If you've not played the original, go ahead and skip that one and go straight to this one.

I enjoyed Corporation Inc and the original Smooth Operators. Learned there was a sequel from Orbital Potato.

The game is almost playable on a Steam Deck. Unfortunately, there is some issue that prevents clicking from being read consistently. This can lead to having to fan the trigger or click binding up to twenty times to get the game to register what you are doing. Frustrating. On a PC the issue did not happen for me and the game runs.

There are other modernity issues aside from this. Namely the game springs new restrictions on you after the fact. Research plants? Can't put them in an office. Your receptionist even mocks you for not building the office in the correct way to make use of mood boosting objects. Want to fix it? You can't. Have to blow up your rooms and receive a fifth of what the room costs and build it somewhere else. Rooms don't destruct back to corridors (Sim Tower, Highrise, et all.) If some employee couldn't path to an exit then the game blocks you from destroying the room. Planned ahead for elevators with corridors? Can't replace them with an elevator.

This particular game seems to be completely oblivious to every quality of life feature in tower builders (or builders in general) across the genre and it makes it very annoying to play.

TL;DR

7/10: It took over ten hours to figure out the Hard Mode difficulty curve, and after I built a sustainable business model, I hit an impasse due to an employee getting stuck in a room, but the developers are great people and are staying on top of bugs. (Often resolving bugs within twenty-four hours of being notified.) If Smooth Operators 2 is an improvement over it's predecessor, I'd hate to see how bad the tutorial was in the original game! GIVE US *REAL* SAVES!!

Overview

Think Project Highrise but with much more humor, much less boredom, and the player running a call center that contracts with outside businesses. The game infers that the call center later on in the game can become it's own business, but ol' Il Pallino isn't anywhere near that point in the game! Calls can be incoming or outgoing, and there's also Backroom Office which are bureaucrats that handle paperwork. Eventually the player will have to hire office managers working in Human Resources, [Project Managers[/i], and Business Developers so that they can support support the work of call center employees. (While costing money and making no money for the player.) When office managers have no workload to perform, the managers can perform research which unlocks more rooms and employee types, more transit types, decorations, rewards for employees, and new businesses to take on contracts from.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics are of a cheery nature which perfectly helps set the humorous mood of the game. Dialogue and thought bubbles frequently appear over employees, which is nice to see how employees feel and exactly what it is they're doing on the job.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2972428585

The sounds of employees all doing their job is a perfect mood-setter, and amazingly, the background music is a rare combination of nice and mood setting... As much as ol' Il Pallino would rather play the Bachman Turner Overdrive song Taking Care of Business.

Positives and Negatives

The humor matches the (negative) attitude that ol' Il Pallino has of corporate America, and while the business descriptions all feel accurate, the descriptions are also really funny.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2971121562

Employees frequently generate complaints by doing the darnedest things on the job, and the player has to make a decision to either discipline that player (hurting the employee's mood and adding to the Human Resource workload while improving relations with the company the player contracts with) or do nothing if the player wants to help the employee's mood and/or save Human Resources the workload at the expense in a hit with relations with the contracted company.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2971536377

The tutorial isn't helpful, and not only does nothing to help the player design a sustainable business model, but also fails to point out great things like bank loans (vital if the player is playing on hard mode) and that wonderful section called objectives which results in monetary bonuses (and achievements) for completing these goals. (In the first playthrough, ol' Il Pallino went some time before realizing that he left a lot of money on the table to claim.) Needless to say, ol' Il Pallino spent a long time in the school of hard knocks before finally building a successful call center.

The developers seem like good people who keep their ear close to the ground, and almost immediately acknowledge bugs that I encounter, which is always an admirable trait in a video game.

The biggest complaint is that the saves are not the traditional type of manual saves for the most part, and there's going to be trouble if the player either makes a bad decision or a critical mistake due to a brain fart.

Conclusion

Despite being a little rough around the edges, Smooth Operators 2 is still a valuable gem with enough cut and polish to impress strategy and tycoon-loving gamers. Go ahead and "answer the call" and buy this game.

The honest word of Il Pallino... OR ELSE!

Follow our curator page, OCG-Curations, if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.