I think this is the first survival-crafting game I've played, so there may have been a learning curve here for me that other players could have skipped. It took me a few runs to see the loop of looting and repairing your car fully set in, but once I fully understood it I think that was the point where I began to lose interest with the game. I never really felt much sense of satisfaction when I completed a run, and I was especially annoyed when I would screw up the ending of a run after the rest of it had gone smoothly. I get the sense that these mechanics are intrinsic to a game like this though, so I'm not sure if I was ever going to play this to completion.

That said, there are a lot of things I do like quite a bit about this. I actually really like methodically getting the car ready for the next run, even though it is literally just working through a checklist. Driving and interacting with/via the car itself also felt novel in a game of this type, and though the ends of runs where I failed were frustrating, the ones where I succeeding were almost always exhilarating (a tough line to walk). Expanding on that, the atmosphere surrounding everything in Pacific Drive is what hooked me initially, and kept me playing for the 10 or so hours that I did stick with it.

Let’s get the worst out of the way first. I can’t stand the character writing and performances in this game. I find a number of characters entirely off putting, some to the point where I would yell at my TV almost every time they spoke their condescension. It’s a small miracle I was able to push myself to play through the entire game.

While there’s a chance that some people may like the writing here, subjectivity and all, some problems relating to this are objectively bad. One example towards the end of the game has you being asked to copy a series of verbal instructions, and if you take more than a literal second to comply, the instruction will be impatiently repeated.

It’s not all bad though. The broad strokes of the story are interesting, and there is the occasional scene that is poignantly portrayed (most often without any dialogue).

The art is the main draw here anyway. Its claymation art style leads to some stunning scenes, but again I would put a caveat on this. Because you’re looking at recreations of physical objects, not the direct photos of the models themselves, something is lost in the physicality you’d normally get from this style. It kind of just looks like any other stylised video game.

Now I don’t think that’s a reason not to explore new creation methods for game assets, but when this game took 10+ years to develop, I’m just honestly not sure this was worth that time investment. I especially think this as you feel the game’s pace being padded out with a lot of slow backtracking.

I hate to sound so critical of something that’s clearly had so much care put into it, especially into the handmade art, but so much just didn’t connect with me. I’d recommend checking it out on Game Pass if you have it available so that you can see if you fare any better than I did with the writing.