What’s killing Pacific Drive for me is that I find the loop pretty dull. There’s not much to driving, the procedural loot map stuff is really mind numbing. A lot of the difficulty from the later areas comes from the hazard modifiers, which are mostly turning the knobs up on radiation, damage taken etc. A well-kitted car doesn’t feel all that different to travel in, you’re just turning the knobs up on your car’s attributes to keep up. 10 hours in, I get in a big ol’ crash — this part of the game’s good, just reacting to hazards, messing up and paying for it — but as I think of the loop I’m gonna have to participate in to make up for it, how little it differs from the usual routine, how much I’ve already been avoiding the loot cycle, I think I’m good! There’s just nothing to break it up. The narrative’s pretty slow, propped up exclusively by one-sided conversations with performances that’d be more enjoyably hammy if they weren’t the only thing driving the story, which consequentially feels pretty thin — not that I needed more than “haunted wagon, haunted Washington” to check it out anyway. Killer mood, mood killer to play.