I had to give up on Pacific Drive, the weird-fiction-inspired driving survival game I recommended the other week. Not because it’s bad – it’s great – but because it needed 20-plus hours from me that I just do not have right now.
Also, if I’m totally candid, it freaks me out. It’s a game about probing further and further into a long-abandoned exclusion zone in a beat-up old car, and the anomalies you encounter. These range from pillars suddenly thrusting themselves from the earth to alarming hurricanes that shove you around the road, and all are excitingly inventive and creepy.
But it was the tourists that finished me off. Now and then you’ll see mannequin-like human figures standing frozen in some disquieting pose, and they seem harmless, but then I noticed that they sometimes change position or come closer when you look away from them, and that was me done. Nope. No, thank you. I can’t operate under these conditions.
Every review I’ve read of Pacific Drive has mentioned how attached the critic became to that rubbish old car, your only companion out in the unknown, which you gradually repair and augment with better parts and Ghostbusters-like gadgets to help you deal with the world outside.
“I have a massive floodlight mounted on the side of the car for night missions, and a device that synthesises fuel (somehow) from the zone’s weird atmosphere, and a literal lifesaver: a device that heals me when I’m sitting in the driver’s seat,” wrote PC Gamer’s Christopher Livingstone. “Best of all, I’ve got a forcefield I can activate that keeps those damn hovering anomalies from grabbing parts of my car and absconding with them. Here’s an actual quote from me the first time I watched those gross monsters trying to latch onto my car only to bounce harmlessly off my glowing energy shield: Ha ha ha! Suck it! I love this damn car.”
I felt this connection, too. The car was a place of safety in Pacific Drive, but I also had to take care of it, tending carefully to all its scrapes after each run, laboriously applying duct tape and magic repair resin to its wounds. It felt as if it had a personality; over time, your vehicle develops these quirks, such as the windscreen wipers always activating when you open the car door, or honking at inopportune moments, and to fix it you have to puzzle out what’s causing the problem through a simple engineering logic game. Or you can just leave it how it is. You get used to the honks.
I often experience this personification of inanimate objects in games, particularly when it comes to vehicles. In Halo, I would always try to take the same Warthog through the levels with me whenever possible, even when it was ludicrously impractical and I was driving it through alien bases full of zombie creatures. It was my Warthog. Portal plays with this idea when your evil AI tormentor GLaDOS gives you the Weighted Companion Cube – a grey box with hearts on – that I was then compelled to carry faithfully with me until it was incinerated as a joke.
I have also become very fond of particular weapons or pieces of silly armour in games such as Monster Hunter, to the point where I was reluctant to abandon them even when significantly better ones were available to me. I remember feeling an absurd connection to Kratos’ axe in God of War, and the way it always returned to your hand with a comforting “thwack” after you threw it. I became irrationally paranoid about forgetting to recall it and accidentally leaving it behind in the depths of a ruin. (This is impossible, but I worried about it anyway.)
This is a quite different experience from our attachment to video game characters, which are usually intended to activate our emotions, like all fictional characters do. It’s more like the feeling I have about my favourite mug, or the bike I had when I was a kid. Until I started reading about other people’s experiences with Pacific Drive, I thought this was an unusual and specific personality quirk, but I was reassured and amused to read that others similarily ended up strangely attached to a pretend car.
Apparently, humans have been forming emotional connections to game pieces since the iron age, so perhaps it’s not so strange after all.
What to play
For so long, the millions(?) of us who had a burning desire to play through the pages of a medieval manuscript went unsated. Then Pentiment came out, and finally we were able to slake our thirst. Now Inkulinati brings a funnier, more irreverent approach to this burgeoning genre: it’s a strategy game where you command an ink-drawn animal army across the decorated pages of a venerable text. There are rabbit archers and snails that can devour anything close to them. Every now and then you can make a giant human hand appear to mess with the action on the page. It’s endearingly silly.
Available on: Windows/Mac, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch
Estimated playtime: 8-10 hours
What to read
Rockstar Games told its staff that they must return to the office full-time, as the studio enters the final stretch of development on Grand Theft Auto VI. VGC reports pushback from employees and unions, who say: “Working from home has been a lifeline for many of us at Rockstar, allowing us to balance care responsibilities, manage disabilities, and relocate as we need. Now, Rockstar is snatching away that lifeline without a second thought for the workers who’ll be impacted most.”
Warner Bros’ head of games told an audience at a Morgan Stanley even this week that WB Games is dead-set on funding mobile, free to play and live service games over “one and done” console games. This is despite the fact that Hogwarts Legacy, a single-player game, was the biggest-selling title of last year, and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, a live-service game, is one of this year’s first major flops. Executives gonna executive.
Nintendo has settled a lawsuit that it brought against the makers of a popular Switch emulator, Yuzu, for facilitating piracy. Yuzu’s creators must cease operations immediately, surrender the code and all websites relating to its emulation software, and pay Nintendo $2.4m. This is rather less than the $14m that convicted hacker Gary Bowser is on the hook for, as we reported last month.
If you, like me, have been enjoying the evolving the Glasgow Willy Wonka experience fiasco, you may enjoy this re-creation of the now famous dream-shattering event in Animal Crossing. People have also re-created it in Fortnite and World of Warcraft. It is truly the gift that keeps on giving.
What to click
Supermarket Times review – surrealist adventure in a store of secrets
The Commodore 64 Collection 3 review – retro console serves up old favourites in fine style
Question Block
Reader James asks this week’s question:
“As an artist type, I love sandboxy games that almost straddle the line between ‘is this just an app for drawing?’ and ‘an actual game with goals and challenges’. One of my favorites was Starbound, where I would be digging away in the ground and laying tiles in stripes to make a fancy decorated base while my teammates were dashing off to blast monsters. I’m also an unabashed fan of House Flipper. What other games are out there that give me a lot of space to create?”
James, I am not an artist, but I know someone who is: Anna Hollinrake, co-founder and creative director at developer Electric Saint. I asked them to answer this for you, and here’s what they say:
“I too love the feeling of stepping back from a game session and admiring my past few hours’ handiwork! With the increase of photo modes within games, there’s even more opportunity to showcase a particularly well crafted level. What immediately jumps to mind is city builders and the beauty of practical choices meeting aesthetics – much like my favourite aspects of creating traditional artwork. I immediately think of Middle Eastern architecture inspired Airborne Kingdom, or pastoral, meditative tile-based Dorfromantik (pictured above). I am a sucker for those tiny details of life happening below your cursor.
There’s also the opportunity to explore negative space in Terra Nil, where you scrub away any sign of your technological presence after bringing the landscape back to life. My favourite joy, however, is the simple beauty of Townscaper, which I’ve used as a tool for idea generation – telling myself stories as I glide the camera through the multi-levelled streets and water beyond.
For games with less focus on the landscape (what can I say, I’m an environment artist), I adore the opportunity to craft my own tarot deck within The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood, building cards from collections of graphics and finding personal meanings within them. Unpacking, too, lets you build a life from a stranger’s possessions (and you can find deep solace in the in-game struggle to find a place to put your keyboard, monitor, and graphics tablet).
In terms of forthcoming titles, I’m excited for Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles and Summerhouse – both visually intoxicating in their own way and absolutely games I’ll want to sit back and admire once I’m done! I swear, if I get into model trains it’d be all over, I just love seeing tiny worlds grow.”
If you’ve got a question for Question Block – or anything else to say about the newsletter – hit reply or email us on pushingbuttons@theguardian.com.
