Pacific Drive

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. has made Roadside Picnic famous, but it harshly mangled the book: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.’s Zone was a zone of armed conflict between various factions and mutants, instead of being a place of mystery and supernatural. Pacific Drive, on the other hand, pays an unexpected tribute to the “feel” of the original book, despite nominally being “a car-driving game”.

When you get down to it, Pacific Drive is a quietly brilliant game. There's nothing that comes to mind that is like it, and it's an outwardly simple concept that also has a variety of layers. While out on a run, you deftly drive around anomalies and sometimes escape a junction with a tattered car by the skin of your teeth. Other times, you're outfitting your car in the garage while the jukebox is playing, carefully considering what to bring with you and which parts you should have on the car. This game is exactly what I had hoped it would be when I initially heard about it, and it's been a long time since I've played something so boldly different.

Pacific Drive is a fantastic survival game with an addictive gameplay loop that involves forging deep connections to junctions, progressing deeper into an ever-changing Zone, upgrading a quirky vehicle, and navigating through challenges that appear on the road ahead.