Pacific Drive is the only craft-type game I've been able to chill with in the past half-decade.

Gathering resources isn't a slow and boring chore, it's an optimization problem. Blitzing through every zone as fast as possible while snagging supplies as you go feels like mapping a space in a way that's almost like an arena shooter.

The final stretch is a little wonky, and the narrative climax didn't hit for me - a very "wait, that's it? it's over?" sort of ending - but I'm glad I saw it through to the end.

If you enjoy "survival" games at all, you should absolutely take this paranormal station wagon for a spin.

Merhaba öncelikle şunu söylemek istiyorum. Oyun süresi bir araba sürme simülatörü için çok uzun olmuş. Oyunu ilk fragmanı çıktığından beri takip ediyordum. Adamlar nedense hiçbir fragmanda bu fast travel sistemini bırakın göstermeyi göz kırpmamış bile amk. Oyunun full açık dünya olacağını tahmin etmiştim neyseki önyargılı bir insan olmadığımdan dolayı oyunu denemek istedim. Ve 5-6 saat akıp gitti. Oyunun zaten çok klişe bir hikayesi var. (Spoilersız) Radyodaki insanlar sana komut veriyor. Oyunun hikayesi yok yani sıfır ara sahne bir tane bile yok. Nedense oyun overrated bir şekilde çıkış yaptı. Halbuki çok söylenecek çok eleştirilecek yanı var. Neyse oyun tarihine bir balon daha girmiş oldu. Oynanırmı? ben vaktimi 16-17 saat boşa geçirmek isterim diyen varsa benim gibi salaklar oynayabilir.

I was pretty onboard with the vibes of Pacific Drive from the start. While it began and maintained as an oppressive "What the f is going on??" vibe, you slowly begin to piece together some understandings of how the Zone functioned. Combined with satisfying upgrade and crafting mechanics, it kept me quite entertained for its roughly 20 hour run time.

To start things off, I'm not much of a survival game person. I eventually find a lot of these types of games rather aimless or frustrating to the point where it loses me. I was surprised to find myself not in this situation (for the most part) in this game. I always had the next thing I'm looking forward to getting and was able to make decent progress towards that objective. While death is quite punishing, you can definitely alleviate some of these design decisions with generous accessibility options.

Combined with a satisfying upgrade system is a semi-roguelike system where you make "runs" to collect resources and make it further into the Zone. I did notice towards the latter half of the game that running earlier zones just to collect some early-game resources was rather tedious. But, as you begin to understand the anomalies that pepper the Zone and make longer trips, the game turned into quite a satisfying loop.

What accompanies these loops in the Zone is a narrative that features several disembodied voices that supports you as you make your way around the Zone. While you never seem them, I noticed myself getting quite attached to these characters as I went along. While I can totally see why some folks might find their presence annoying, I really enjoyed the light-hearted banter in such an oppressive environment.

Finally, the upgrade system and narrative comes to a head in the final stretch of the game. I did notice towards the end of the game that the amount of endgame resources required to get some of these upgrades became, for the lack of a better word, a tedious chore. Combined with an ending that ends up not really explaining anything and just kind of...ends, I can see why a lot of people were disappointed with the ending. For me, I realized that by the end of the game that I cared more about the characters rather than the Zone itself, and I'm glad the game structured the main mission line to not make some of these late-game upgrades a necessity to finish the game as it probably would've ruined the pacing.

Overall, I'm mildly surprised by the fact that I enjoyed Pacific Drive so much. I found that the game is pretty uncompromising in what it set out to do. I'm sure as soon as players noticed how meticulous Ironwood has built out the player's interactions with the car (For example, you can hurt yourself by dropping the rear door on your end), a lot of players would have bounced off. But for me, the satisfying car upgrade / loot run loop, the familiar and unsettling vibes of the Zone set in my home of Washington and the cast of characters allowed me to enjoy an experience that I haven't quite seen in other games. I look forward to what they do next!

Not much to like here, atmosphere was ok. There's no actual fun/relaxation in the driving (it's actually slghtly infuriating) it just involves going a few metres slowly, avoiding obstacles, until you reach the next building/abandoned car to loot and then fast travelling to the next area of procedurally generated buildings that are copy pasted again. In theory if you wanted to avoid this tedium there are a good range of difficulty settings to remove damage, fuel etc (This removes your ability to unlock achievements if you care about that) but i believe you still have to loot for parts. Otherwise, the controls are strange but i think you can get used to it, can't comment on the story as i didn't stick with it for long but the voice acting seemed ok and finally, there are tons of bugs but i don't usually let it effect my ratings in the hopes they will be fixed over time as it is a new game.

Joguei em torno de 4 horas e posso afirmar que, de início, é no mínimo interessante. Mas, infelizmente, não posso continuar a jogar. Meu PC não aguenta rodar o game de forma decente durante as missões, e colocar todas as configurações no "Low" faz o jogo parecer uma massinha de modelar, horrível. Isso tira toda a ambientação do local, que é super importante pro jogo, pelo que deu a entender na história e no contexto geral do que aconteceu e do que tá rolando na Península Olímpica. Quando eu tiver um PC que tanke mais, talvez eu volte para jogar, mas por ora realmente não tem como ter uma experiência boa com esse péssimo desempenho.

I generally enjoyed the game, but the gameplay loop did begin to get a bit stale towards the latter half of the game.

The atmosphere is great, the music is great, and slowly upgrading your car and base is fun. The story is just kinda there and the ending left a lot to be desired.

A pretty good first game for a studio, if a little rough around the edges.

Pacific Drive is a fun, unique game but has it's flaws. The overall experience however is solid. It provides a satisfying driving game with survivor elements included perfectly. Manually refilling your car and repairing your car is extremely fun. The game doesn't run out of ideas as well with randomly generated areas and a random assortment of anomalies.

However, the game has faults. The main one in my opinion is the progression system. Throughout the game you will find new materials and items which can help you craft new items. Firstly this requires a bit of a grind, but then all you unlock is either more storage or better armour which you will probably have to replace after a trip further out in the zone.

Solid game that just some tweaking and modifying to make the playthrough more enjoyable and entertaining.

📌 RUS Version
Стэндалон игра про Буханку из «Metro: Exodus» не удалась

Очень тихо и незаметно прошёл релиз «Pacific Drive», и вот почему:

Игра не может предложить ничего больше концепции "ты мастурбируешь лут, кастомайзишь своё корыто и катаешься по тихоокеанскому побережью вокруг аномалий".

Это всё. Никаких откровений, сюрпризов, интересного нарратива, крепкого сюжета или глубокого геймплея.

📝 Здесь есть множество скучных записок и главный герой, который настолько "никто", что у него не только голоса, но и тела нет. Помимо него есть ещё три заэкрановых персонажа: постоянно что-то болтают, и только по радио. Их озвучивают классные актёры, но играть им особо нечего. Все сюжетные линии вроде подходят к концу, но в итоге сам сюжет по сути это — даже не громкий, а — просто «пук».

🎮 По геймплею игра сама не понимает, чем она хочет быть.

Дефолтный режим в какой-то момент становится перегруженным различными переменными и хочется его поменять. Но других сложностей или режимов в игре нет. Есть огромный список модификаций-читов с настройкой отдельных пунктов от «негаснущих фар» до «неполучения урона от конкретной стихии».

То есть, мне не совсем понятно, как сам разработчик видел этот геймплей.

Потому что если всё это поотключать и чиллить на лесных пейзажах, ну хз, они не настолько грандиозные или ламповые. Визуал приятный, но слишком дженерик, чтобы им наслаждаться. Да и никакого геймплея, кромке жмяканья на газ больше не останется.

В общем, играть в увлекательное "сам себе геймдизайнер за свои же 1500р" я не захотел и остался на дефолте. Но уже через пару абзацев будет твист.

✨ Аномалии не работают комплексно и не создают уникальных ситуаций — хотя это выживач — жанр, где игрока закидывают в песочницу с экосистемами, которые генерят ему истории —. Они либо разбросаны то тут, то там, либо сваливаются разом большой пачкой и заталкивают тебя в гробан.

Через пару часов это уже начинает сильно заёбывать. Особенно, когда до сюжетных участков трассы нужно добираться каждый раз заново через миллион одинаковых развилок — это же авто-рогалик —, где ты просто давишь тапку и едешь к воротам на следующий уровень.

А когда на 70% сюжета ставят гриндволл...

На этом моменте я решил сбавить градус духоты ♨️, и воспользовался всеми возможными внутриигровыми читами, подрубил трейнер и проехал до концовки — ни о чём не жалею. Очень редко так делаю, почему бы и нет. Так бы я её вообще не прошёл, а досматривать на ютубе не хотелось.

В общем, кастомайзить машинку было прикольно, но оно того не стоит.

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📌 ENG Version
The Standalon game about UAZ-Bukhanka from "Metro: Exodus" failed

The release of "Pacific Drive" was very quiet and unnoticed, and that's why:

The game cannot offer anything more than the concept of "you masturbate loot, customize your trough and ride along the Pacific coast around anomalies."

That is all. No revelations, surprises, interesting narrative, strong plot or deep gameplay.

📝 There are a lot of boring notes and the main character, who is so "nobody" that he does not only have a voice, but also a body. Besides him, there are three other off-screen characters: they are constantly talking, and only on the radio. They are voiced by great actors, but they don't have much to play. All the storylines seem to be coming to an end, but in the end the plot itself is — in fact not even loud but —, just a "fart".

🎮 According to the gameplay, the game itself does not understand what it wants to be.

The default mode at some point becomes overloaded with various variables and you want to change it. But there are no other difficulties or modes in the game. There is a huge list of cheat modifications with the setting of individual items from "non-extinguishing headlights" to "not receiving damage from a specific element".

That is, it is not entirely clear to me how the developer himself saw this gameplay.

Because if you turn it all off and chill on forest landscapes, well, they are not so grandiose or lamp-like. The visual is pleasant, but too generic to enjoy. And there will be no more gameplay, there will be no more gas pressure on the edge.

In general, I did not want to play the exciting "my own game designer for my own 30 bucks" and remained in default. But in a couple of paragraphs there will be a twist.

✨ Anomalies do not work comprehensively and do not create unique situations — although this is a survival genre where the player is thrown into a sandbox with ecosystems that generate stories for him. They're either scattered here and there, or they come down in a big pile at once and shove you into a coffin.

After a couple of hours, it's already starting to fuck up a lot. Especially when you need to get to the plot sections of the route every time again through a million identical forks — this is an auto-bagel — where you just press the slipper and go to the gate to the next level.

And when they put grindwall on 70% of the plot...

At this point, I decided to reduce the degree of stuffiness ♨️, and took advantage of all possible in-game cheats, cut the trainer and drove to the end - I don't regret anything. I very rarely do this, why not. So I wouldn't have passed it at all, and I didn't want to watch it on YouTube.

In general, it was fun to customize the machine, but it's not worth it.

With a lot of survival/looter games I tend to find myself drawn in by the concept before being turned away by the execution and Pacific Drive does just that for me. There are aspects of the game I like, and with a tweak here and an addition there I feel like I would really enjoy this game, but at the moment it just comes across flat. (Get it? like a tire)

Like all games of this genre there's the gameplay loop: go out into the world, gather resources, return home, upgrade yourself/things, venture out further into the world. Pacific Drive is the same. You fix up your car, head out into "The Zone" (no really), gather supplies to fix your car with, come back, fix your car, and head out again. The problem with Pacific Drive is it feels like it's a true loop. As in, I feel like i'm in the exact same spot once i've exhausted my resources as I was before I went out to get them in the first place. There's no real survival aspect, there's no base building or expanding to do that I came across. The resources you gather are mainly to repair the damage caused by going out on your latest run. You drive car, you fix car, you repeat. Now driving the car, gathering up stuff and exploring IS fun, I just wish it felt rewarding to do it.

Now you might remember how I said earlier that part of the "traditional loop" of these sorts of game involves venturing out further and further on each run. This brings me to my next issue with Pacific Drive which is that venturing out further consists of leaving the garage, hitting a loading screen, and the game putting you into a small map and telling you that you have gone further into The Zone (No... really). The game takes away the anticipation that should be building with passing familiar areas on your way to unexplored territory, by just putting you out there. And after you've picked up your supplies how do you think you get back the garage? Why it's another loading screen, once again taking away tension that should build with having your supplies and now needing to be able to make it back home with them.

I hate to sound like i'm just hating on this game. I do like the idea, I like the environment, I like the car, I liked playing the game up until the point where i felt like I had experienced most, if not all, of what the game had to offer. I feel like the addition of something else to put your supplies towards would serve the game well, like NPCs who need them to survive, bringing a choice of "do I give these to other people and leave my car lacking for the next run, or potentially harm others so my car is in top shape?" For the time being I think i'm done with Pacific Drive, but i'm hoping as time goes on there will be a reason to come back to it.

Pacific Drive - I wanted to love you, but at the end of the road I just liked you.

First, the good - the atmosphere, story, and music are all top notch. I enjoyed learning the lore of the Zone and figuring out how the characters were related to what was going on. The sense of place was unparalleled, and while I played there were moments I really felt like I was driving around the woods of my home state. The music, largely performed by local WA artists, was great and reasonably varied.

However, the good was somewhat undercut by the bad. There came times when the story "paused" because I needed to do a few drives to gather materials in previously-visited zones, and during these times I found it much easier to notice little annoyances in the gameplay and graphics. I found that some, maybe even many, of the gameplay systems became tiresome when I had to grind resources to engage with them. The music, while great, was limited to only 15 tracks. Because of this, at the end of my 22-hour run I had heard every song numerous times, and I'd grown tired of most of them. The performance was only consistent in its inconsistency, and the fluctuating frame rate negatively impacted my immersion in an otherwise deeply atmospheric game.

Overall, the initial impression was strong. After the first hour I would have rated this game 5 stars. After 22 hours, the magic had faded (but not vanished!). I still loved the story (despite a slightly lackluster conclusion) and the immersion this game offered was great, but undercooked gameplay elements and lack of variety eventually dragged the game down for me.

I'd recommend this game to any Washington local, or to people who enjoy exploration-driven games and can forgive some clunkiness.

Very fun concept! Clear inspiration from Roadside Picnic/Stalker only with a beat up old woody station wagon as your best friend. The mechanic....mechanics aren't intrusive or too complicated so you don't have to be a car enthusiast to enjoy it, the car is very modular in that fashion (put the wheels on the rotors, put the engine in the engine bay etc). The world is fun to rip around and explore and the anomalies are varied and interesting to encounter. The only things that irked me is sometimes the writing doesnt always land but it isnt awful. Death can be quite punishing as theres no saving mid-run (you have to do a corpse run to get whatever shit you had in the trunk back.) Overall very relaxing ""rogue"" type game that succeeds in that feeling of falling in love with your piece of shit car!