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.

As the first game in my "Remedy Rampage", where I'll be playing through every game Remedy Entertainment has ever made, I think Max Payne was a great start to their catalog. With that being said, just like Half Life 1, I really don't know how I truly feel about this game.

Throughout the game I was constantly reminded of Half Life 1, which is weird because gameplay wise they are nothing alike. Maybe it was how old they are (1998 vs 2001), maybe it was the fact that you can hit E on almost everything for a silly little interaction, or MAYBE it was the fact that every face you see in-game was a real person. Regardless, just like Half Life 1, I can tell that this game was made by a small but passionate group of developers and other than having to edit registries and game files to get it to work properly, I think the game holds up pretty well.

The biggest similarity between this game and HL1 for me though, was the fact that I felt like I was missing something very vital by playing it 20+ years after it released. I laughed when I launched the game and it warned me not to turn some settings on unless I had 32 MB of VRAM. I was amazed when I was told by a friend that this game was hard to run when it released, and it's engine was used in the 3DMark 2001 benchmark! While playing, I could never know the impact this game had back in 2001, and I think something is lost because of that.

It's because of that "something" that when I have a small criticism of the game play, I can't help but disregard it because at that point I'm already comparing this 20+ year old game to games I've played in the last 5 years of my life.

I wish the game play was a little faster. Mr Payne doesn't need to be bouncing around the walls like his peers in "Double Action: Boogaloo", but it would've been nice if the shoot dodge didn't activate bullet time every time. I also felt that there were WAY too many guns, which is a weird complaint I know. But what's the point of using the dual berettas if the dual Ingrams exist. This is an example of a complaint that is fueled by my experience with modern games. In Doom Eternal and Ultrakill, two of my favorite shooters of all time, every gun has it's use. Max Payne doesn't really LOSE anything by having so many guns, but it was a thought I couldn't shake while playing.

Overall, I had a good time with this one and I'm excited to play the sequel, which I've heard is "just better". I'll also probably come back at the end of all of the Remedy games just to try out the other difficulties, which I skipped for now.

I can only really describe this game as charming, in almost every aspect.

Art Style: Charming
Music: Charming
Gameplay: Simple and almost archaic but it works for this game, very charming.

But I also believe this believe would not suffer in it's charm factor if there was more DEPTH to the combat which is literally what this game is all about. As it currently stands, I liken many of the melee combat scenarios in this game to two boulders crashing into each other, and with all of the different classes and weapon types I just wish there was more of a felt difference between the combat scenarios.

Regardless the combat works well enough that it doesn't make the game annoying to play or make the game too easy to play.

However I must mention the UX with the inventory, the hotbar , and the dual hand system is in desperate need of a rework because constantly having to open your inventory to move stuff around on your hotbar gets REALLY annoying.

All around very fun with a friend but not sure if this is really a roguelike I would play by myself.