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.

Pacific Drive is a rare case of a game that wrangles an oversaturated and stale genre by its neck and spin it into something original. It grabs everything about survival games and put it in four wheels.

Instead of the usual hunger, tiredness etc you now have fuel, battery, wear & tear and many other small gameplay mechanics and details that together forms a very cohesive big picture. Tending after your car can be a bonding exercise - and sometimes even relaxing, diligently fixing your car, organizing loot and researching new parts from the comfort of your garage after a panicked close call extraction.

One thing this game got absolutely right is the quirks system. As you progress through the adventure, your car starts to develop "malfunctions" that can range from being harmless, annoying, detrimental and even beneficial. It feels like your car is another main character by itself.

If you're a fan of diegetic sim games such as Jalopy, enjoy works of speculative fiction such as Roadside Picnic/Stalker and isn't bothered by survival mechanics and a little bit of grind, then this game is for you.

The only thing that somehow soured my experience is that it could have used a little bit more variety. Anomalies are awesome, but after a while you start to notice there's only a few types of them. Can't shake the feeling the game could've been more ambitions and creative in this regard. Same for the POIs: at some point I started ignoring them because they offered too little loot for too much effort (and it's always distributed in the same boxes/bags/etc). Lastly, Pacific Drive would have benefited from more unique stuff (such as exotic parts/equipment and decor) to reward exploration other than generic resources and the occasional random decal or paint.

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.

I never thought I would enjoy the story in a game about driving. This is basically like Jalopy, except way more fleshed out in terms of scope. The sense of progression is fantastic and the looting and inventory management were superb, and, the story was very good and the characters were all very wonderful, I found myself engaged in their conversations at times and I would laugh with them here and there. The driving physics were fantastic also, every bump the car feels it has great and the weight transfer of the car when braking felt solid also. Overall, great game, but lacks challenge; I died maybe twice in my 40 hour playthrough.

Infelizmente Pacific Drive não me agradou o quanto eu esperava, não é um jogo ruim, mas tem muitos elementos que acabaram tirando meu interesse em continuar jogando.
Primeiramente quero destacar os pontos positivos dele, as músicas que tocam na rádio são incríveis, a mecânica de upar o carro e de fazer as manutenções são legais.

O que não me agradou nem um pouco foi a sua história, achei muito fraca e desinteressante, chegou a um momento do jogo que eu simplesmente fazia as missões sem nem saber o porquê direito.
Outra coisa que me pegou um pouco, foi o fato do jogo não ser mundo aberto, não que eu ache jogos de Extraction ruins, mas acho que esse jogo caberia muito mais um mundão aberto.
As anomalias do jogo são muito sem graça, acho que se o game tivesse algumas ameaças reais, seira bem mais legal. Sinto que esse jogo tinha um potencial incrível e foi mal aproveitado, poderiam botar algum tipo de combate simples e um risco maior em cada run misturado com a mecânica do carro, seria bem mais interessante.
Como falei antes, não é um jogo ruim, da para relaxar jogando, mas acho que completar toda a história desse game não rolou para mim

7/10📜
«Pacific Drive could have set an example for top-tier games, but will only be remembered as an example of inventive 'presentability', the game pleases the eyes, but forgets about the filling»

From the first seconds the game captivated me with its visuals, the “Stalker” atmosphere, and the secrets of the sci-fi plot, so I must warn you right away that it was not worth it, think 3 times before buying,
Probably, I was too naive, thinking that a survival game, also with rogue-like elements, would not choke me with farming, but still the first prologue-hours were almost perfect, the music created tension, conversations on the radio showed that “we’ve also prepared a story for you here,” the semi-auto-generating locations, although they were infuriating with absolutely identical houses and cabinets, but the constantly changing anomalies could also create funny micro-moments,
That is, alas, that’s all, the atmosphere doesn`t reach the well-known (Stalker) series, the dialogues between scientists are far from “Firewatch” game ,even notes are not able to create interest in the game universe, because they use the style of obituaries, which is funny at first, but the repetition gets boring, the game, in general, has as much meaningless text as there is farming, which is also done quite problematically, for example, you will stop the car every 10 meters, put the handbrake on, open the door - get out, farm - go back in, start engine again - it really takes you out of the flow, imagine that every 2 minutes, for example, you would have to get up from the computer, and then come back, and again and again,
Now I will try to describe to you the essence of the gameplay, your task is to get from point A to point B, bypassing a random large number of anomalies-traps on your way, any contact with which is most likely to cause damage, and, therefore, make it more difficult for you to move to open point C, you definitely need to collect several energy flasks in zone B, this will allow you to open an evacuation portal, and you will need to have time to leave before you are devoured by the expanding anomalous “danger zone”,
After that, you will need to patch or improve the car in the garage (which can also be upgraded with new stuff), and again drive from point A, but to point C, in order to complete the plot task of turning on some levers and listening to pseudoscientific lore, or get to more rare resources that could not be at point B of the 1st danger level, by successfully teleporting from point C to garage, you will open point D - and so on, this is how the local web of routes works in all directions, if you die, you will not open the next point destination and you will lose all the collected resources, except for energy, which is also needed to discover new crafting recipes, the collected loot can still be found at the place of death during the next run, according to the plot you are essentially immortal, since you are magically connected with a machine that is constantly reborn from the ashes,
So, accordingly, there is no need to walk in anomalies, as in a Stalker game, ust scan carefully from afar to unlock new recipes, only some "traps” are always located near valuable resources, their effects are only electricity, radiation, devouring car parts, throwing into the sky - but all these are just different types of damage, each of which requires farming a separate defense resource, and there are also global map factors, such as anomalous darkness, or the failure of all electrical appliances in sector, as well as radiation “danger zones” - clouds of varying lengths constantly fly along the map, and the only enemies here are flying robots with a cable, pulling your car, a car part, or you personally in a random direction, and sticky balls (something like hl2ep2),
That is, look - it’s impossible to drive without damage, mistakes will be very expensive, runs last as long as competitive game matches, you always need resources to craft the same spare parts instead of broken doors and wheels, and what, then, do we have here?

Survival simulator for S&M! where you are not given any particular motivation to farm, except that the next time you break down you will be a little less angry than the last time, let`s agree - it`s so so, considering that even at the end of the game, you will still need the most basic resources of the very first levels, which, in my opinion, is not a very good job with balance, even despite the “hardcore” concept, although I haven’t played very many survival games, but usually over time it becomes easier to upgrade things from previous levels,
It’s incredibly disappointing that in a game in which you can take a hundred “movie frames”, which shows how a low-poly indie game can bewitch thanks to work with effects,
They forgot to make the game itself inside it, Steam is full of survivalist fans - why bother.. I try to avoid the word “farm, farm”, but that’s exactly how 99% of the game is described in simple language,
All the story missions are empty, click this and that, the story of the scientists is a “banal” drama, the ending is less epic than the beginning of the game (and how cool the music is at the beginning, and how inexpressive the rest of the game is), and there are a lot of non-intuitive things, or not fully explained, or simply inconvenient, while even the thinnest trees at the slowest speed will break the bumper and headlights of your car into rubbish, oh, this is the most vulnerable part, how you will suffer with it,
At the same time, your car will always have about 5 abnormal breakdowns that need to be diagnosed and found among hundreds of options, having a limited number of attempts, for example, when closing the trunk, the hood may open or an alarm may sound, which cannot be cured by itself,
The customization station is made tastelessly, and the “cool things” for the car, except for the steering wheel and the figures are too small that they are practically invisible, only the painting of the car is interesting, but, again, when the parts are broken, it’s all destroyed,
As a result, you just get tires and drive without any repairs or diagnostics at all (especially since there are free parts from the magic junkyard), because the game is too overloaded with this, well at least the physics of the car and everything else is normal, and if you get stuck, the car easily respawns,
The whole point of this game is to constantly keep you on your toes as you do the most routine things possible, just press forward (W) for 30-60 minutes, turn away of PC even for a second and you can touch the devouring trap, and if you suddenly run out of gas. .. uh, then in a couple of minutes it will have time to eat 90% of the painstakingly assembled car, and don’t even think about breaking something with the machine, you're so fragile that anything will break you, there is no change in difficulty in the game, the only good thing is there is a lot of gasoline - suck it out of the barrel, find a pump, and a battery charging station, again, if you don’t forget to add extra gas 50th time at the end of the game, where you have to go through 5-6 locations in 1 run.

If you are ready to do the same thing, the same thing, knowing that for the slightest miscalculation you will be punished, and if you don’t need a plot, then this is not the worst survival game, the number of various devices and recipes is sufficient, although any additional accessories turn into a sieve with any anomaly and may become useless on the first run,
they can give extra abilities btw (which you can assign to 4 buttons), such as a resource radar, auto parking, or a protective barrier - the only thing that makes life easier in the game,
The picture of the game will never cease to please the eye, you may not want to leave the atmosphere of the Strugatskys’ “Roadside Picnic”, in fact, the “early access” formula would be ideal here, technically everything works well (although it’s convenient to write off any bugs as anomalies), but in terms of content, it`s an empty shell, a process for the sake of a process, but it`s an incredibly beautiful and inventive shell, intelligently mixing ideas popular in gaming culture.

p.s. Even among cross-Playstation exclusives such as "Stray", "Sifu", or "Neon Whte", the game is at the bottom of my list.

😊 Sub to my Steam`s Curator`s page: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41977550

//
Игра с первых секунд подкупила меня визуалом, "сталкерской" атмосферой, тайнами научно-фантастического сюжета, так что я обязан сразу же предупредить, что оно того не стоило, 3 раза подумайте перед покупкой,
Наверное, я был слишком наивен, думая, что выживастик, ещё и с элементами рогалика, не задушит меня фармом, но всё же первый час-три пролога были почти что идеальными, музыка создавала напряжение, а разговоры по рации показывали, что "у нас тут и сюжет вообще-то будет", полу-автогенерирующиеся локации, хоть и бесили абсолютно одинаковыми домиками и шкафчиками, но зато постоянно меняющиеся аномалии могли также создать забавные микро-моменты,
То есть на этом, увы, всё, атмосфера не дотягивает до всем известной серии, диалоги между учёными далеко не "Firewatch", даже записки не способны заинтересовать вселенной, ибо используют стиль некрологов, что забавно поначалу, но надоедают от самоповторов, в игре, в целом, столько же бессмысленного текста, сколько и фармления, которое тоже сделано достаточно проблематично, например, вы будете останавливать машину каждые 10 метров, ставить ручник, открывать дверь - выходить, фармить - заходить обратно, заводить - очень выбивает из потока, представьте, что вам каждые 2 минуты, например надо было бы вставать из-за компа, потом обратно чёт делать, и так снова, и снова,
Сейчас я постараюсь описать вам суть геймплея, ваша задача - доехать из точки A в точку B, минуя рандомное большое количество аномалий-ловушек на вашем пути, любое соприкосновение с которыми, скорее всего повлечёт урон, и, следовательно, затруднит ваше передвижение, чтобы открыть точку C, вам обязательно надо собрать несколько колб энергии в зоне B, это позволит открыть портал эвакуации, и, надо будет успеть уехать, пока вас не сожрала расширяющаяся аномальная "запретная зона",
После этого вам надо будет залатать или улучшить машину в гараже (который тоже можно улучшать), и опять ехать из точки A, но уже в точку C, чтобы выполнить сюжетное задание по включению каких-то рычагов и прослушивании псевдонаучного лора, или добраться до более редких ресурсов, которых не могло быть в точке B 1-ого уровня опасности, успешно телепортируясь из точки C обратно в гараж, вы откроете точку D - и так далее, так работает местная паутина маршрутов во все стороны, в случае вашей гибели, вы не откроете следующий пункт назначения и потеряете все собранные ресурсы, кроме энергии, которая также нужна для открытия новых рецептов крафта, собранный лут ещё можно будет найти на месте погибели при следующем заезде, по сюжету вы по сути бессмертны, так как магическом образом связаны с постоянно возрождающейся из пепла машиной,
Так вот, соответственно, лазать по аномалиям, как в сталкаче, тут не нужно, только осторожно сканировать издалека для тех же рецептов, лишь некоторые "ловушки джокера" всегда располагаются неподалёку от ценных ресурсов, эффекты у них лишь только электричество, радиация, пожирание частей автомобиля, подкидывание в небеса, но всё это просто разные виды урона, на каждый из которых нужен фарм отдельного ресурса защиты, ну и есть ещё глобальные факторы карты, типо аномальной темноты, или сбоя всех электроприборов в данном секторе, также радиационные "денжер зоны"-облака различной протяжённости постоянно пролетают вдоль карты, а из врагов тут только летающие роботы с тросом, оттягивающие вашу машину, деталь машины, или лично вас в рандомноv направлении, и шарики-липучки (типо как в хл2),
То есть смотрите - проехать без повреждений невозможно, ошибки будут стоить очень дорого, катки продолжительностью соревновательных матчей, ресурсы для крафта одних и тех же запчастей заместо отлетевших дверей и колёс нужны всегда, и что мы, следовательно, имеем?

Симулятор выживача для садомазохистов! где вам не дают особой мотивации к фарму, кроме той, чтобы вы при следующей поломке бесились чуть меньше, чем в прошлый раз, согласитесь - так себе, учитывая, что даже под конец игры, вам всё равно будут нужны самые базовые ресурсы самых первых уровней, что, как по мне, не очень хорошая работа с балансом, даже несмотря на "хардкорность" концепции, хоть я и не очень много выживастиков проходил, но обычно в таких играх со временем прокачка вещей прошлых уровней становится проще,
Невероятно обидно, что в игре, в которой можно наделать сотню "киношных кадров", в которой показывают, как малополигональная инди-игра может завораживать благодаря незатейливой работе с эффектами,
Забыли сделать внутри этого саму игру, как в том меме - "лааадно, итак сойдёт", типо в стиме полно любителей выживастиков - итак схавают.. я стараюсь избегать слова "фарм, фарм", но именно так и описывается 99% игры простым языком,
Все сюжетные миссии пустые, нажми то то это, история учёных "банальная" драма, концовка менее эпична, чем начало игры (причём какая же крутая музыка в начале, и какая невыразительная всю остальную игру), при этом много не интуитивных вещей, либо не до конца объяснённых, либо попросту неудобных, при этом даже самые тонюсенькие деревца на самой медленной скорости будут в хлам разламывать бампер и фары вашей машины, оох, это самая уязвимая часть, как же вы с ней намучаетесь,
При этом ещё на вашей машине всегда будет около 5 аномальных поломок, которые надо продиагностировать и найти среди сотни вариантов, имея ограниченное количество попыток, например, при закрытии багажника - может открываться капот или срабатывать сигналка, что не вылечится само по себе,
Станция кастомизации выполнена безвкусно, а сами "приколюхи" для машины, кроме руля и фигурки, слишком мелкие, чтобы можно было что-то разглядеть, лишь покраска машины вызывает интерес, но, опять же, при разламывании деталей - это всё уничтожается,
В итоге, ты просто забиваешь и едешь вообще без ремонтов и диагностик (тем более, что есть бесплатные детали от волшебной свалки.. ну, с небольшими нюансами), ибо игра слишком перегружена всем этим.. хорошо хоть физика машины и остального нормальная, и если застряли - автомобиль легко переспаунивается,
Вся суть этой игры - постоянно держать вас в напряжении, когда вы делаете максимально рутинные вещи, просто жмёте вперед (W) на протяжении 30-60 минут, хоть на секунду отвернётесь от компа и можете коснуться пожирающей ловушки, а если у вас ещё вдруг бензин кончится.. уу, то за пару минут она успеет съесть 90% кропотливо нафармленной тачиллы, и даже не думайте сломать что-то машиной, вы насток хрупкий, что всё ломает вас) смены сложности в игре, если что, тоже нет, единственное - бензина на картах много - и из бочки высосать, и колонку найти, и станцию подзарядки аккумулятора, хотя бы тут не облажались, опять же, если вы не забудете в 50-ый раз залить доп. бензина перед вылазкой, состоящей из 5-6 локаций.

Если вы готовы делать одно и тоже, одно и тоже, при этом зная, что за малейший просчёт вас покарают, и если вам не нужен сюжет, то это не самый плохой выживач, количество разнообразных приборов и рецептов достаточное, хотя и любые доп. аксессуары превращаются в решето при любой аномалии, т.е. стать бесполезны при первой вылазке,
они же могут дать доп. способности (которые вы можете назначить на 4 кнопки), типо радара ресурсов, автопаркинга, или защитного барьера - вот это единственное, что упрощает жизнь в игре,
Картинка игры не устанет радовать глаз, возможно, вы не захотите уходить из атмосферы "Пикника на обочине" Стругацких, на самом деле, сюда идеально подошла бы формула "раннего доступа", технически всё может и работает (хотя любые баги можно удобно списать на аномалии), но по наполнению контентом - это ленивая пустышка, процесс ради процесса, в невероятно красивой и изобретательной обёртке, грамотно смешивающей популярные в игровой культуре идеи.

p.s. Даже среди кросс-эксклюзивов Playstation, таких как, например, "Stray", "Sifu", или "Neon Whte", игра в конце моего списка.

😊 Если вам понравился обзор, лучшая поддержка - подписка на Кураторку Стима: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/37365104

It's like a less scary stalker experience with a car in it, featuring fun gameplay and progression. The pacing and storyline are genuinely intriguing throughout the journey. However, reaching the end, you realize that nothing significant unfolds. Instead of feeling a sense of accomplishment and perhaps a tinge of sadness that often accompanies completing a compelling game, you're left feeling disappointed. Despite its potential for a solid 4 perhaps a 4.5-star rating, I could only muster a 3.5 due to the lackluster finale.

The idea of constantly repairing and improving your car while driving through dangerous territory is awesome, and this game executes it well. Everything is so tactile and requires you to manually move pieces throughout the world using your tools. (I actually think this game would be incredibly cool in VR for that reason.)

Unfortunately, the mechanics of maintaining your car are not enough for this game to stand on. The gameplay loop is interesting at first, as you collect the many different resources the game requires to craft different parts, but by a certain point you realize that the entire game requires you to drive somewhere, loot, repeat. The atmospheric horror starts out strong, but the lack of any real threat makes it forgettable by the end of the first act. Most of the anomalies are lacking in flair, like electric clouds or buzzsaw in the ground, and all of them are extremely easy to avoid once you understand how they work.

This game is missing something key, whether it be a tangible threat or another system stacked on top to make the car system work that much better. This system would work well if incorporated into an FPS or survival horror game with an actual monster chasing you. Imagine how much more terrifying a chase would be if your car suddenly decided to conk out, and you had less than a minute to fix it. I wanted to love this game but its just missing something key that's holding me back from diving into it.

You need to set your expectations right with this one to appreciate it. Pacific Drive is much more of a chill and occasionally spooky atmospheric looting/scrapping/crafting game with a focus on vehicle customization than it is a stalker-like or death stranding-like where death and danger are constant concerns. Initially I was disappointed by how loot-oriented it is, stopping your drive every 30 seconds to sift through a copy-paste interior with generic crafting mats is repetitive and not very interesting, but I eventually got into the flow of it. Moreso I feel the true letdown here is the anomalies: I think it would be gauche to want actual “monsters” - it’s not that sort of game, but the array of benign atmospheric hazards that comprise the bestiary here don’t really instill much tension in the gameplay; even in the final and supposedly most dangerous zone, there’s not much here that can’t be circumvented by just driving a little bit around it, and anomalies like “corrosive mist”, “shock mist” and “irradiated ground” just feel very uncreative considering they take up the same slots as tourists and wriggling wrecks that feel like genuine anomalies. The first time I got to the “Eerie Darkness” zone I was shitting myself at every random atmospheric noise, but once you come to the realisation that nothing is really out there and nothing will ever be there, the game kinda loses a lot of its mystique. Even from the perspective of the survival mechanics, the game is very easy - once you load your car up with reserve tanks and batteries, you’ll basically never run out of fuel or charge, and the result is that you can just gun it wherever without much regard for resource management in the lategame. In this sense I think it was a bad idea to make the game revolve around returning to a home base over and over - a continuous journey without free recharge/refuels could have introduced more long-term ramifications for bad decision-making, and it would have made me think about using all those oil barrels lying around that I never needed to touch or battery jumpers sitting in my trunk all game, and more linearity could have allowed some actual level design to be introduced into the game instead of endless proc-gen (it’s telling that the story missions that use preset layouts feel much more interesting than the proc-gen stuff).

Still, the atmosphere is so good in this game that I enjoyed it quite a bit, the driving mechanics are very well executed, and the quirk mechanic in particular is pretty genius; letting your car develop unique traits that further endear you to it, which is weaved in with the overarching narrative themes about obsession and letting go. I feel the whole narrative package would be a lot better if the ending was better though. [spoilers incoming!] I really thought the game was building up to a moment where you would have to sacrifice your own car, and I thought this would be really powerful. Every character in this game is wrestling with some sort of obsession that’s keeping them tied to the zone, and the game ends with Oppy overcoming hers and finally letting go of Allen’s death, and a very good parallel moment with the Driver needing to let go of their own car, which they’ve forged a connection with throughout the game, seemed like an obvious choice, but the game instead goes for a very video-gamey “you just unlocked Free Play mode!” ending where nothing really happens, which feels like it misses The Point in a narrative where letting go is the main theme.

Pretty cool game overall if you can take it for what it is, but I do think the same concept could be executed better, which I would like to see because the concept of this game is so good. In general I really like the “long haul through a hostile environment with gameplay revolving around logistics instead of combat” archetype and would love more games like it. Maybe I’m just looking forward to Death Stranding 2…