I hate to shelve yet another game this year, but Pacific Drive’s somber tone, air of mystery and gameplay loop were fun at first, and quickly lost their charm and became tedious.
As far as gameplay goes, the real standout thing here is the tactility. Manual control is everything in Pacific Drive: you have to manually toggle the wipers, transmission, and the headlights, regularly refuel your car, recharge its battery and repair/replace every part of your station wagon’s outer shell. The replacements do have a tangible effect on gameplay, as well. A new set of wheels, or even just one of your old wheels getting loose or punctured have an effect on your car’s handling that is very much felt. The same tactility applies to out-of-the-car gameplay, too, though to a much lesser degree. You’re taught to disassemble everything and anything you come across in the Zone, but not every thing is interactable - far from it. Most doors are permanently locked, most anomalies are basically untouchable, and most of the tech in the zone is affixed to the floor.
The issue of limited freedom in general is the one you notice pretty much right away. The first minutes of Pacific Drive see you drive a car you can’t exit or modify, then you’re led through a string of highly directed tutorials where simple actions get introduced one at a time in a very limited environment. You literally are not able to do stuff like siphon fuel from a roadside wrecked car until you’re specifically told to by Oppy, at which point you’re finally allowed to do this very simple thing. This feeling of “there’s nothing to do until the game decides it’s time” persists well into the middle portion of your playthrough, at which point all illusions thoroughly break down and the game becomes predictable and simply boring. You settle into a routine: unlock some new recipes, repair/replace parts of the car, get on the road, go to a place, gather three thingamajigs to start a visually impressive but transparently non-threatening and directed sequence of doing a warthog escape through a portal, OR go through a gate on the other side of the area to do the previous routine in another place. Gathering supplies, avoiding anomalies and maintaining your car doesn’t change quickly enough: by the time I got to Mid-Zone I’ve already taken like 6 identical drives through the Outer layer, so it’s hard to be impressed by or interested in anything anymore. You know?
It’s a shame because I genuinely was starting to become invested in these kooky scientists’ past and present struggles, and if anything, the narrative and character work in this game are surprisingly decent. Too bad all you do is drive to a place and grind for new car parts!
Tentative 6/10, might change in the future
As far as gameplay goes, the real standout thing here is the tactility. Manual control is everything in Pacific Drive: you have to manually toggle the wipers, transmission, and the headlights, regularly refuel your car, recharge its battery and repair/replace every part of your station wagon’s outer shell. The replacements do have a tangible effect on gameplay, as well. A new set of wheels, or even just one of your old wheels getting loose or punctured have an effect on your car’s handling that is very much felt. The same tactility applies to out-of-the-car gameplay, too, though to a much lesser degree. You’re taught to disassemble everything and anything you come across in the Zone, but not every thing is interactable - far from it. Most doors are permanently locked, most anomalies are basically untouchable, and most of the tech in the zone is affixed to the floor.
The issue of limited freedom in general is the one you notice pretty much right away. The first minutes of Pacific Drive see you drive a car you can’t exit or modify, then you’re led through a string of highly directed tutorials where simple actions get introduced one at a time in a very limited environment. You literally are not able to do stuff like siphon fuel from a roadside wrecked car until you’re specifically told to by Oppy, at which point you’re finally allowed to do this very simple thing. This feeling of “there’s nothing to do until the game decides it’s time” persists well into the middle portion of your playthrough, at which point all illusions thoroughly break down and the game becomes predictable and simply boring. You settle into a routine: unlock some new recipes, repair/replace parts of the car, get on the road, go to a place, gather three thingamajigs to start a visually impressive but transparently non-threatening and directed sequence of doing a warthog escape through a portal, OR go through a gate on the other side of the area to do the previous routine in another place. Gathering supplies, avoiding anomalies and maintaining your car doesn’t change quickly enough: by the time I got to Mid-Zone I’ve already taken like 6 identical drives through the Outer layer, so it’s hard to be impressed by or interested in anything anymore. You know?
It’s a shame because I genuinely was starting to become invested in these kooky scientists’ past and present struggles, and if anything, the narrative and character work in this game are surprisingly decent. Too bad all you do is drive to a place and grind for new car parts!
Tentative 6/10, might change in the future