These days it seems as though almost any sort of story that could be covered in a game has already been covered by someone else. Doing something truly original is very difficult to pull off an is very unlikely to happen in games. Every now and then though, someone does something quite risky and somehow, it just works.
That is the case with the very unusual game that I recently got for "free" with my PS-Plus Extra membership in a wonderful game called Pacific Drive
I'll admit when I first saw this game I was less that impressed with how the game's story sounded. It is kind of odd to me that you would be in a beat up station wagon in some sort of magical world and the objective isn't very clear. All you know is that you have to head out and get materials and survive long enough to make it back to your garage base.
That's really all this game is as well and to anyone that hasn't tried it, it sounds kind of dumb. That's what I thought but seeing as how the last 2 games I tried were DOA, I figured what the hell? and i played it anyway. That was 4 hours ago.
While there is a central story, it is kind of up to you how and even IF you decide to advance it. The meat and potatoes of this game is that you head out in your station wagon filled with tools and you go and collect bits of scrap from abandoned houses and cars that are littered all over the roads and in the woods. Exploration is rewarded and discovering new things will unlock new things that you can use to make your "runs" easier.
In between runs you spend your time building up your car, upgrading things, updating the garage as well, and doing things like repairing damage or creating new and stronger bits like off road tires and armor plated panels.
There is always something to upgrade but you cannot upgrade if you do not salvage and that is why when you are out on the road, it is important to slice up all the cars that you encounter as much as you can.
This process becomes more efficient as time goes by and you find yourself with rather odd seeming tools such as a hand held vacuum that will pick up all the lose materials automatically. Prior to having this you would have to click on each dropped salvage material individually, and this can get a bit tedious.
This is one thing about the game that I will say is less than awesome. This game appears to have been created with a mouse and keyboard in mind because clicking on things on screen has never been easy with a controller and sometimes it can be a bit difficult to even know what your character is pointing at. You also will use the entirety of the buttons on the controller as there are many menus and commands that would likely be simplified by having a keyboard.
It gets easier the more you play it.
it can be a bit frustrating in the field when you encounter enemies or "anomalies" as they are called in-game, because you don't really have a bunch of weapons. This game is not about fighting, it is about collecting materials and avoiding things that would hurt you.
I can't figure out how the enemies spawn or how they find me, and this can result in very bad things happening.
The first time you encounter "bollards" you will likely learn the hard way, like I did.
I was never introduced to this anomaly, it just popped out of the ground under my car while I was standing next to the car innocently sorting though my car's inventory. Next thing I know I am flying through the air and so is my car. I took a ton of fall damage reducing my health to 10% and my car was fubared as well. It took me a while to get those repairs sorted and I barely limped back to the garage.
one downside of this game is that there is a very steep penalty for failure in the field and you cannot save while you are out there. This is something that nearly made me quit the game because when you do get warped back to your home base, not only is your car a wreck and you have to repair the bejesus out of it, but you also end up losing most of the materials that you had gathered on that run.
I highly suggest manually saving before each run
I am so used to games autosaving that I didn't bother to do this on my first time playing it, and just like most people playing a game for the first time, I was overly cautious in my run and had spent the last hour or so doing one run. Almost all of my salvaged materials were lost. Thankfully the next game I installed was a complete dud so I decided to go back to Pacific Drive and have another go.
Now I am hooked.
I can't put my finger on exactly why this game is awesome because the idea of running around and salvaging empty buildings and dead cars doesn't exactly sound thrilling does it? Well, somehow it just kind of works and I think it is difficult to grasp that until you have actually tried it.
This is also an "indie" game so I feel better about supporting it. I don't know if you have noticed, but lately it feels like the AAA studios aren't really all that interested in making good games, they are making games that are just good enough to lure us in, and then they microtrasaction us as much as they can.
This game is a one-time purchase or in my situation, something you don't even pay extra for at all. It's as casual as you want it to be as well so other than constantly needing to activate the parking brake - which is annoying - the game always keeps you on your toes.
I am loving this and really glad I tried something new. This game simply works for me!