Surely most of you have at some point felt the so-called bus or cafeteria loves, those fleeting infatuations with people whom we will probably never see again. That’s exactly what I felt when I saw Pacific Drive for the first time during the Future Games Show in 2023. After rewatching the presentation, I gobbled up all the trailers, gameplays, and images I could find.
I’ve had almost three weeks to try out the Pacific Drive demo on Steam (PC). This is the early stages of the game and lasts 1-2 hours for anyone who gets straight to the point. There are a total of three locations dedicated to history and as many dedicated to exploration. They are small-medium sized open areas separated by fast travel.
In short, I have dedicated almost ten hours to the demo. Five or six of them playing as such and the rest trying things like disassembling all the parts of the car, falling off all the possible ravines, throwing the car down hills without a handbrake and more crazy things to test the limits of the game.
Pacific Drive: Exploration, Farming and Driving
Bluntly: I’m in love with Pacific Drive to the hilt and I can’t wait to have it in full on my PS5 to tell you all the details of this adventure. For the moment, it is enough to say that we are a young woman lost in a radioactive exclusion zone (Olympic Peninsula, USA) (STALKER or Metro) and our most powerful tool is a Buick Electra Estate Wagon (40s-60s).
It is difficult to pigeonhole Pacific Drive. Although it recalls Firewatch both in the prominence of the story and in the artistic section, it has a couple of equally important pillars: survival and simulation. I will explain as briefly as possible because the presentations do not do them justice.
- Survival: exploration, mining and resource management, crafting all kinds of tools, parts, gadgets and consumables, skill development, upgrades… You must collect materials, upgrade the car and add upgrades to face all the problems and survive the journey through the exclusion zone.
- Simulation: Its driving is halfway between arcade and realistic. It has very sophisticated physics and you can screw up any part of the car by being silly, from the engine itself to any of the parts of the sheet metal. Not to mention that the car has a battery (electricity) meter and that you can even suffer punctures, being able to repair the wheels with patches.
The part of the headline that says “it’s the perfect definition of crazy car love” is not an exaggeration. You can’t choose another car and the closest thing to having something unique is customizing it. Pacific Drive It puts you in the following situation: all you have is a beat-up Buick Electra Estate Wagon and you are forced to work with what you find along the way.
This means that you will spend dozens of hours restoring, improving, maintaining and driving the same car, sometimes even adapting it to different locations. After doing some research into the upgrade menus, I have come to the conclusion that the amount of parts for the car is overwhelming. We talked about how there are different tires, protections, roof racks and even specialized insulators for electricity and radiation, among others.
The message I want to convey to you is that Pacific Drive It is not a video game to consume quickly and move on to the next. Already from the demo it cries out for dedication and patience, souls capable of enjoying both the mechanical moments and driving during exploration. You don’t need to have knowledge of engines, but you must be willing to spend hours in the workshop.
It is impossible for me to tell you everything I want about the game without leaving a mile-long article. I have filled out a sheet of my notebook (two sides) with just notes, but I think what is shown is a fairly accurate summary. My goal was to make it clear that the adventure of Ironwood Studios It is deeper than it appears. I hope that the 25 minutes of gameplay will help in this task.
Now that I have clarified what I consider most important, I want to do a quick review of several relevant aspects, both positive and negative. The last few have not been very numerous, but they have been annoying.
- The graphics and performance section They have performed perfectly at all times. It looks nice, the framerate is stable and I haven’t had any crashes.
- I suffered a couple of bugs with the missions: They were not completed correctly or did not indicate the objective well. Some indications can be confusing. For example: the trunk door is considered a normal door. In fact, you have to make a normal door and it converts when you place it.
- The protagonist urgently needs a flashlight, even if it has to be manufactured and powered with batteries. I have not found plans or options to turn it on in the controls. There are flares, but I don’t think they’re enough. Searching for resources indoors and at night is torture. You literally can’t see anything.
- The subtitles couldn’t be worse placed. They are located in the upper area and are very difficult to read when you are driving. Taking into account that an accident is very expensive, they should be down by default.
- The sound is great, it has music (radio) and the artistic section is for asking whoever designed it to marry you. The HUD and menus have a very cool retro-futuristic vibe similar to Pip-Boy from Fallout.
In conclusion: although the aspects to improve have been annoying (subtitles and flashlight especially), my first impressions on a general level are very good. I am very happy with Pacific Drive. I’m looking forward to analyzing it in its entirety and continuing to play at my own pace after its release on February 22, 2024 for PC and PS5. I recommend not losing track of it!
