Pacific Drive Analysis | Eurogamer.es

Ironwood Studios debuts a risk-taking game filled with personality, with a concept that fits and works perfectly. But at the same time, this creates difficulties that may cause discomfort to a large part of the public.

It may sound cliché, but there are some video games that are very difficult to recommend, either because of their features or because they require some effort on the part of the person taking control. Just as there are titles that I would recommend with my eyes closed, others require a deeper conversation with the person asking the question in order to have a clearer idea of ​​their tastes, ideas or preferences. One of the most prominent examples that comes to mind is Death Stranding; This is one of the best screen experiences I’ve ever had in my life, although at the same time I realize that other people might find it boring because it’s essentially a game of walking back and forth, and a pretentious one at that. due to the construction of the narrative that is recreated when it comes to posing on the line of ambiguity. In a way, I had the same feeling when I played Pacific Drive and had the opportunity to write this analysis. In this case, as with Kojima’s game, it goes well beyond recommending or not, as its conceptual and design values ​​and ultimately its features have far more impact than most offerings. That’s why I decided not to put any stamp on it. I’ll try to explain this to you.

Pacific Drive does everything it sets out to do well, and that’s a credit to Ironwood Studios, a team formed in 2019 by several industry veterans who, with their debut film, gave us the kind of bold, risky work they’ve probably won with. they won’t end up selling millions of copies, but they will be able to enjoy what they want and how they want, which isn’t always easy in an industry where results seem to take precedence over other values. Although the concepts of resource management and survival are already very familiar to us, the difference here is that the real protagonist of the adventure is the car with which we will have to find a way out of the so-called Olympic exclusion zone, a sinister place in which we are left alone with our four-wheeled ally and from which we will have to escape, overcoming countless adversities in the form of meteorological phenomena that will force us to pass through pits more than once in order to try to escape successfully.

In this journey through a surreal world, we will have to constantly perform management exercises to get closer to being able to achieve our goal. For this, there are several peaks on which development is based. The main one is to collect items and materials that will help us improve our car or, if necessary, repair it, which is what usually happens. This forces us to stop every time we find a house or warehouse to loot everything we find; It doesn’t belong to anyone, so you won’t have to feel guilty about it. At least that’s what people tell us on the radio, who are somehow trying to help us and serve as timely help in an adventure in which we have no other company than a vehicle. I won’t go into details of the story so as not to spoil the surprises that are there, but I will say that it gave me a feeling similar to the one I had with Firewatch, where you are also alone in a large setting, but you feel that You are constantly being watched and you feel like nothing is going to go right.

Pacific Drive has a development full of features that require patience and time to understand. The level of detail in controlling the car’s parameters borders on nauseating; Every time we get into a car, we have to start the engine, release the handbrake, turn on the headlights and activate the windshields if the weather conditions are unfavorable. And, of course, keep an eye on the fuel gauge so you don’t end up in trouble. For this purpose, we have a bucket in the trunk that should always be full, and if we find other abandoned cars in the area, it is advisable to check their tanks in order to extract fuel that could save our lives. Between missions we can improve all these aspects in the garage, which serves as a base of operations and where it is convenient to spend time on customization. You don’t need to have a mechanics course to do this, although in the early stages you may be overwhelmed by the abundance of information and options we have when it comes to making benchtop items that are used for both repair and maintenance. improving the machine itself to equip us with useful gadgets for extracting elements in the Zone.

But don’t expect resource extraction to be as easy as driving down a deserted highway. The various biomes combine asphalt, rocky terrain and dense forests that make it easy to get lost, so you need to keep an eye on the GPS in the passenger seat to plan a route that seems easiest. I can already tell you that there is nothing, because in that place that we will have to try to avoid, paranormal phenomena occur in the form of rising earth, electrified zones, radiation or even creatures that stick to our body like pincers in order to destroy the car . . Sometimes, especially when everything seems to be going smoothly (heh), the game creates majestically designed traps that are very difficult to avoid, resulting in a loss of control and therefore damage to our vehicles. Accidents at work that leave us with the opportunity to stop on the shoulder to repair it or finish it, even if it is without doors, because in many cases time is of the essence.

Everything I’ve told you has the sadistic appeal that demanding proposals that created a school like souls usually have, only here instead of bastard swords that increase in skill, we carry a decrepit race car with the same reliability as Windows in Alpine. This is where the problem comes into play: while it may endear complex sentence buffs, it may also make most of the public stop in their tracks: Pacific Drive is a more demanding game than average in several respects. Firstly, because its mechanics require calm and patience; If you jump straight to the main missions, you’ll quickly realize you’re unprepared. You will fail. While this doesn’t necessarily have to be a problem, it may be the decision that will undoubtedly cause the most controversy: the inability to save the game mid-mission.

While this is a measure taken in good faith by the creatives to fit into their work philosophies, it will likely come as a cold shower to those who can’t commit to a long session of the game, as each mission can, among other things, exceed an hour in length. And if you leave the game, your progress will be lost, since even the resources you have obtained up to that point are not saved. The game will inevitably return to the starting point. Something similar happens if we fail a mission, which usually ends in a breakneck escape in which we have to get to an extraction point before the anomaly engulfs us as if it were a battle royale. If this happens we will lose some but not all resources, but we will have to start the level over and as we say, these are long sessions and failure can be frustrating. In the settings you can change some punishments and elements to minimize the punishment if you want to make it a little more tolerable. But the inability to save the game, while understandable on the one hand, can ultimately hinder the experience. Perhaps the situation will change later if its creators decide to add an update similar to what happened with Returnal when it launched.

Having said all this, as I told you at the beginning, it is difficult for me to strongly recommend such a proposal. If you like what you read, this risky concept works great and is especially useful if what you’re looking for is a challenge that requires effort and time that you’re willing to put in knowing you’ll get screwed as much as possible. ..a mechanic, when you give your car for inspection, and he always finds new defects. If you’re at this stage, add the recommended seal because Pacific Drive does it all very well. If that misery behind the wheel doesn’t appeal to you and doesn’t mean your hour-long sessions can disappear without you even realizing it, the way an electric car battery does, then some Gran Turismo or Forza Motorsport games aren’t so bad and are much more relaxing.