Life On The Grid

I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep playing this when I first started it.  The first hour or two is not the best introduction.  You get bombarded with tutorials and information and mechanics to the point of absurdity, and it all seems a bit much.  “Oh, here we go”, I thought, thinking it was going to be another survival game with needlessly over-engineered mechanics.  But you don’t need to pay much attention to this overload of information because the in-game database and logs, and scanners can tell you pretty much everything you need to know as you go.

The game takes place in “The Zone”, which is in the American Pacific Northwest, and has been cut off from the rest of the country and ravaged by unusual anomalies as a result of wacky science experiments.  It’s sort of a mix between STALKER and a road trip.  The story didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.  The car you find is something called a “remnant”, which is a piece of the old world that has taken the form of a car and bonded to you.  Remnants cause the people they bond with to get obsessed with them and slowly go mad.  So the overarching goal is to prevent that and break the link between you and the car.  Some scientists (including the one who is the cause of the anomalies) help you in this quest, and it largely involves driving further and further into the zone to research, find and investigate various McGuffins.

Once you get out on the road, driving between junctions, you start to settle into a nice gameplay loop of driving to your destination while scrounging for supplies, materials and parts along the way.  You also have to maintain and patch up your car, and avoid anomalies.  You can also research upgrades to the car that will increase its range, durability, capabilities and more to make your journeys easier and longer.

The only major issue I had in my playthrough was that there was no way to fast-travel to previously visited areas.  As the game progresses, your destinations become further and further into the zone and while some sections can be shortened as you discover highway routes, each overall journey ends up taking more and more time as each time you return to your base of operations, the garage, your next trip out will be get back to the same place you went last time and then go further again to a new area.

Overall, I enjoyed Pacific Drive a lot more than I expected, especially given its unappealing introductory segment.  But once you settle into the loop, it does get to be quite enjoyable just cruising around the zone, gradually upgrading your ride and slowly (very slowly) pushing further and further into the zone.  Some more fast travel options would have been nice, but not too many, as this would probably have made the game too short overall.