Pacific Drive Xbox Series X Review 6/10 "Now my car has a slightly stronger left door. Thrilling!" 🚘🌲@ironwoodtweets #IndieGames #GameDev

Keith was a little disappointed that the picture on Auto Trader didn't quite match the car which was on the car salesman's forecourt...

What happens when a heaping pile of things I love crashes at full speed into a brick wall of stuff I despise? Pacific Drive, that’s what! On paper, this chill, spooky, and surreal adventure is very much my bag. Within the first few minutes, it becomes clear this is a big honking homage to Andrei Tarkovsky’s monumentally awesome 1979 film Stalker, with a killer indie-synth soundtrack and fun 70s aesthetics bolted on top.

The game opens with you driving through a beautifully realized recreation of Washington state’s rainy Olympic Peninsula, before being accidentally tossed into the “Zone”. This walled-off area is the testing ground for mysterious technology, resulting in chaotic, dangerous, and surreal phenomena. After finding a working station wagon, you must figure out a plan of escape, aided by eccentric scientists and technicians on radio comms.

That crack in John's windscreen was something that AutoGlass just outright refused to fix.

Yes! Sign me up! This is 100% my kinda of adventure! Then the game itself began and any excitement I’d built up plummeted off a cliff. Leaving its dreamy aesthetic to one side, Pacific Rim is a survival roguelike focused on gathering materials, crafting parts, and slowly upgrading your car.

I’m going to be all “Old man yells at clouds” about this, but if there’s one mechanic I could erase from gaming forever it’d be crafting. Not once in any game have I enjoyed collecting a series of ingredients to fulfil a recipe to create an item. Just give me the damn item rather than make me run through pointless busywork. Unfortunately, crafting is baked into the heart of Pacific Drive: the gameplay loop is fixing up your car, making an expedition into the wilderness, collecting crafting materials, returning to the garage, repairing/upgrading your car and head out again.

For some, this kind of loop is catnip. For me, it’s drudgery that feels suspiciously like work. Despite that, I persevered. After all, there must be a reason these kinds of games are so popular. Also, many people whose opinions I respect sing this game’s praises to high heaven. So I gritted my teeth and tried to squeeze out whatever tiny drops of enjoyment I could from the experience.

After his 14 hour drive James couldn't wait for a peaceful night's sleep at IG DAN's Creepy Motel INC

I tried. I really, really tried. But when the feeling you have when loading a game up isn’t anticipation and excitement but a grim sense of duty, it’s not going well. There doesn’t seem to be much variety in the type of building, meaning you spend time driving through samey scenery, entering the same building you’ve explored countless times before, finding some chemicals in a drawer, and then make the jump home to once again repair the car. Rinse, repeat, yawn.

Theoretically, each run sees me slightly improve my vehicle and move through the story. In reality I felt like Alice in the Red Queen’s race, running as fast as I can to remain in the same place. Now my car has a slightly stronger left door. Thrilling!

After a few hours of not having any fun, I dialled back the difficulty to the easiest setting and figured I could at least blast through the story. But if someone truly despises tomatoes, no matter what recipe you use to make them tomato soup, it’s just not going to go down well.

The guy who Phil got his directions from didn't mention the giant pipe with a red light on it!

SUMMARY

The consensus has already formed that Pacific Drive is a Marmite game and, despite its obvious artistic excellence, killer vibes, and intriguing premise, it’s just not what I want from a game. Then again, this is like someone who doesn’t like American football struggling to enjoy the new Madden game, or a person who has ethical concerns about punching a sumo wrestler in the face playing Street Fighter.

Pacific Drive is absolutely a game for someone, probably someone I have a lot in common with. But it’s absolutely not for me.

MELTING

💧6/10💧

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