For those looking for Objectum media: may I suggest Pacific Drive?
It's a game about surviving the horrors of an anomalous pacific northwest in your scrappy little anomalous station wagon.
The car's sentient, but doesn't speak. It gets little quirks (some helpful, some dangerous, some amusing). Maybe it does a certain honk when you get in, or the gas tank manages to consume slower than it usually does, maybe it turns on the radio when it feels like it.
It's your lifeline. You need it to open Gateways (portals that are your only way back to the comfort and safety of the garage.) You rely on it to protect you from the elements, the often hostile anomalies that you run into at every turn. On harder difficulties, the car's your only safe haven from radiation damage, and each time you venture outside of it you get a sense of vulnerability without the car's hard shell protecting you.
You cringe as you slam into a tree and see the warning lights on the dashboard flash, you find yourself begging it to push on just a little longer as you race for the Gateway, the anomalous storm ripping away at the plating and causing it to honk and swerve and the lights to flicker as you fight to stay on the road, crawling towards the pillar of light on shredded tires and an ounce of gas...
And then in a flash of light, you're back in the comfort of the garage. You roll your battered, injured car in, and you unpack all the loot you've gathered on the expedition, stowing it away.
You check all the acid-burned, dented panels, repairing or replacing them, you seal up the cracked windows and windshield, you tighten the loose wheel that was seconds away from falling off, you recharge the near-emptied battery, refill the tank, attempt to figure out any new quirks the car's taken on, and, after you finish playing doctor, you walk off to the upgrade console and relax, able to use your hard-earned loot.
I find the upgrade system to be very satisfying, and the amount of cosmetic customization is great as well. You can find all sorts of different paint, decals, stickers (there's quite a lot of pride stickers as well!), hood ornaments, & more, and doing so just makes you get even more attached to the little station wagon.
You can even add your own music to the radio, by putting the mp3 files in
%localappdata%/PenDriverPro/Custom/Radio/
And when you're ready, you plot a new route, and head back out onto the road.
There's also plenty of accessibility options, and along with the preset difficulty options, you can manually tweak many individual variables. The presets range widely, between an incredibly hard journey where you've only got one life and the entire zone is throwing everything it has at you and you have to claw your way to survival, to a more managable experience that cuts down many elements that might be too stressful for you.
In short, I highly reccomend the game. I've never cared more about a fictional vehicle more than Pacific Drive's car.
stormborns
ellievsbear
origamiaround
yousharknotpass
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kianamaiart
blakekathryn
