I think tech like this makes way more sense for like random ass NPCs. Like the ones cluttering the background of a city or whatever. AI could really enhance them and make them interesting.
I played it obsessively for the first season and got pretty decent at it.
The second season started, I got disconnected from my first four games about 3 rounds into each. Played it once more on the day that you could cheese the Infallible achievement by running Hoverboard Heroes over and over.
Never played it again. Certainly never touched it since it went “free”.
Man, I really wanted to like this game, I love the setting, art, music, and overall aesthetics, but I’m having trouble finding the fun.
When I first heard about it, I was hoping it was basically a linear road down the coast, with a story to experience along the way (kinda like the boat/car sections of HL2). But then it turned out to be a repetitive grind. There are some mechanics I think are novel and add a lot of fun (ex. the Quirks system), but 90% of what I was doing in the game felt unfun and pointless so I could eventually return to the garage and do it all again.
For me, the fun comes, like in some other crafting games (e.g., Subnautica) and roguelikes, from chasing the next upgrades, enjoying the sense of empowerment they bring, and getting to explore new areas.
For that reason, I love the idea of survival crafting games, but I hate the sandbox, perpetual loop format most of them come in (like No Man’s Sky). Subnautica is the gold standard (with Dysmantle being a surprise second place) of having a finite, focused progression path. Pacific Drive scratches that itch.
Although, I will admit that it’s more stressful than I would have liked too. I knew about the procedural generation and run-based loop early on, but I still kind of expected something overall tranquil. But with storms coming on a timer in every junction, anomalies frequently overwhelming every space you need to explore, and the high stakes of potentially losing a lot of critical material, I found myself playing much more anxiously than I would have preferred, which is what I alluded to about the endgame.
I’m fine with stressful, high risk gameplay, it’s when the game asks me to spend a bunch of time doing something I don’t find fun that it loses me.
Subnautica in particular did this to me. All my friends who like Outer Wilds told me to play Subnautica. I loved the exploration and story, but I didn’t care at all about building a fancy base that I would never see again after finishing the game. There was a particular point where I was bottlenecked on finding a single resource type that was located in one single place in a giant ocean, which turned out to be a place I felt I was being told not to go yet (trying to avoid spoilers). I thought i was being dense, just not learning what the game was trying to teach me, so I ended up having to look it up, only to realize the game did an absolutely piss poor job of directing me toward the resource. My entire experience was soured by that.
It was after that that I decided single player survival crafters are not my thing. I like them as a multiplayer experience, because you can amortize busy work across multiple people, and socialize as you do it, but by myself I’d rather do anything else. I get it if someone finds it relaxing to do that kind of thing, but it’s not for me.
Ha, that’s funny, that’s the exact opposite of me. But games are my downtime, and socializing is work (for me), so I am almost exclusively single-player.
Shame about Pacific Drive, but I get it. There is a ton of repetition.
I’m not sure what games do work, but I’m surprised over half of what they’ve tested are in a good state considering it’s running on an emulation layer with immature drivers. Additionally, anti-cheat can’t really be helped, that’s an issue we’ve been dealing with on Linux for ages as well. I don’t think anyone was really expecting it arm on windows to overtake x86 instantaneously, but from a technical standpoint it’s not a bad start. Of course, things could be better, but they could be much worse.
Meanwhile, Rift Wizard 2 is being hailed as “the greatest game possible” by Forbes and WSJ. “Modding is going to be even better now, holy shit,” experts consulted by NYT said.
The ONLY GaaS game i have ever liked is genshin impact. I like that there is a ton of content that is completely free. And i don’t really care about having strong maxed out characters so I’m just enjoying the world and story.
Besides that, i hate GaaS. Every company wants to make one and they all fail. Just give me my nice stories and gameplay and I’m good.
damn, I knew that Sega had had a few big blunders lately, but having to straight up sell Relic is pretty huge... Wonder how their output will look from now on, it's no secret that some of their output under Sega was questionable (primarily Dawn of War 3) and one has to wonder how much of their failings were due to Sega's directive.
Yeah, and they had so much DLC that was not even always bad value for money… but you need to have a hell of a proposition for people to leave that investment behind.
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