A year-and-a-bit ago, I started learning how to drive. Being rather late to the party and juggling both a full-time job and a part-time degree (not to mention this reviewing lark), it was slow going. Lots of stalls and near misses. Heart palpitations when approaching a roundabout. So I approached Pacific Drive with a bit of hesitation. Afraid that I would get behind the wheel and then just sort of lock up, which wouldn’t make for an exciting video game.
Fortunately, nothing of the sort happened. Instead, I found myself on an otherwordly road trip where my survival depended on a creaky old station wagon. The necessity of keeping it greased and in one piece really added to the atmosphere. Loneliness just barely kept at bay. You can’t be lonely when you’ve got a lengthy to-do list. While I find the survival gameplay a little lacking in areas, Pacific Drive‘s atmosphere and world are second to none.
Roadtrip Picnic
Pacific Drive opens with an inadvisable move. It begins with our hero driving into the Olympic Exclusion Zone. In the real world, best case scenario is all your skin falling off and joining the dropped Werther’s Original under the driver’s seat. In this case though, a bunch of wibbly-wobbly anomalies teleport you to a pocket of the zone and dismantle your car. Your only means of safety comes in the form of a discarded jalopy, which you bundle into and drive to the nearest garage. Soon, a gaggle of scientists come on the radio and tell you that you’ve just turned the key of a ‘remnant’.
This is an artifact that binds itself to you, preventing you from leaving. It’s shelter in the same way that brick walls and metal bars are shelter. Still, it gives us a nice excuse to poke around in the zone. This ‘zone’ is Pacific Drive‘s best character. A slice of Washington countryside that’s beset by strange anamolies. It’s full of beautiful vistas and terrifying exploding mannequins. I’d place Pacific Drive‘s general feeling at a perfect midpoint between cosy and horror. You could spend an hour on a leisurely drive, only to stop for supplies and be beset by acid or weird machines dragging your car around. I adore it.
As you can tell, Pacific Drive is a mish-mash of genres. More than you can imagine. Not only survival, with a dash of horror, but it’s also a roguelite of sorts. The general loop is that you pick a ‘junction’ in the zone to travel to. These are randomly generated levels, full of buildings to pick through. You explore until it’s time to leave, whereupon you collect ‘anchors’ – balls of energy. Collect enough and you can create a gate back to the garage. Doing so causes the entire junction to collapse, though, so you have to put the pedal to the metal to escape. It’s a lovely shift from calm to chaos.
Kitting Out
The non-story goal of these excursions is to dig out enough materials to upgrade your banger. You start off with doors made from spit and cardboard, but as you scrounge up scrap metal and a few choice unique materials you begin to kit yourself out. A spare fuel tank here, armour plating there. It’s an enjoyable progression tree. What’s more, the general act of kitting out your car is quite relaxing. I’d come back from a tense and frustrating run, with my car on the verge of falling apart, and spend the next half-hour methodically piecing it back together, which dissolved all anger.
The upgrades have an immediate gameplay effect too. Better wheels make for less punctures; better doors for less irradiation. It’s nice to see hard work pay off. That said, I’m not as enthused about the actual hunt for materials. I feel like Pacific Drive simplifies a bit too much. All the upgrade components are broken down to basic items, like rubber or electronics. While it makes for easy recipes, it means that exploration is usually poorly rewarded. The randomly generated nature means that a tough to reach location could net you nothing more than a T-shirt and a scrap of paper.
Still, the plot does a decent job of keeping us in drive. It’s dictated by three people that come through our radio. Oppy, a grumpy old scientist who’s deeply connected with the zone. Francis, a young disgraced scientist trying to regain his self-esteem. Tobias, a maintenance man with a healthy respect for both science and superstition. I started off almost disliking them, but they won me over. They all bicker, but in a very human way. A bunch of colleagues in a hellish situation. The writing – and acting, which is equally important – are top notch. The emotional notes hit like a car crash.
Pacific Drive – Calming Chaos
Perhaps the weakest point of Pacific Drive‘s writing is the driver themselves. I can see the advantage of a silent protagonist, but the constant referral to the ‘Driver’, without any response, felt continually awkward. I’m no Ryan Gosling, I assure you. If I could dream for a moment, I’d have liked a system akin to Firewatch, where our hero expresses personality through a radio. Some ability to share in the emotional moments would have gone down well. As it is, we have all the personality of a steering wheel.
I’ve a couple of other tiny notes too. Car maintenance seems a bit too streamlined for me. Repairing most scuffs comes down to slathering on ‘Repair Putty’, which heals all damage. Anything more specific and you just create the corresponding repair kit and off you go. I might be alone here, but I was kind of hoping for more in-depth engine maintenance. As such, the difficulty drops off rather fast. I didn’t even bother going for top shelf armour, as I could repair most damage in seconds.
Still, what struck me most about Pacific Drive was the atmosphere. I would flick on the radio and cruise down the road to my next exit, drinking in the vistas and the general bizarre nature. Every now and then, I’d wrestle against anamolies that would send my car spinning out or threaten to dissolve it. Moments of pure panic interlaced with peaceful serenity. It’s a gorgeous, thoughtful and idiosyncratic game that perfectly blends mundane engine maintenance with otherworldly anamolies. Still, the station wagon is an automatic so when it comes to learning to drive? Absolutely useless.
