Hold Driving overview | PC Gamer

I grew up in a city with almost no public transportation, so for many of my childhood I walked, skateboarded, and biked to get round, however freedom—true freedom—was solely gained as a young person once I obtained my first automotive. It was a hand-me-down from my grandfather, so it wasn’t sporty or cool, nevertheless it was the one actual escape from the drudgery of faculty, the oppression (actual or imagined) of fogeys, and the rising panic that maturity, which meant a job, the navy, or extra rattling faculty, was ready on the finish of the summer time.

Hold Driving is a turn-based street journey RPG that completely captures the liberty and prospects of being younger and having a beat-up outdated automotive, simply sufficient cash to fill it with fuel and snacks, and solely the vaguest of locations in thoughts. Similar to in actual life, street journeys in Hold Driving really feel like a carefree summertime journey the place you blast some tunes, eat junk meals, and watch your troubles shrink within the rearview mirror—till that test engine gentle begins blinking, your tank is nearly empty, and also you understand there’s one thing a bit odd about that hitchhiker you picked up.

Map quest

The sport begins with the proper excuse for a street journey: an outdated buddy who lives all the way in which throughout the map has invited you to a music pageant. With three months of summer time stretching out earlier than you, seize a number of provides from your own home, open the map to choose a route, and begin driving. Your automotive is your stock: retailer helpful stuff within the glove field, further provides within the trunk, and ultimately folks (and possibly the occasional canine) within the empty seats.

As you journey between any two map places in Hold Driving, you encounter a handful of obstacles, referred to as street occasions, that sluggish you down: mud puddles and potholes, site visitors jams and biker gangs, and conditions each driver has encountered sooner or later like “obscure lanes” or a bug that flew within the window and may’t discover its manner out. These street occasions are Hold Driving’s model of turn-based fight, as every flip threatens to break 4 totally different attributes: gasoline, money, the automotive’s sturdiness, and your power ranges. To dispel them, you’ll want to match the threats with pips in your ability playing cards or objects in your glove field.

It is a easy fight system that is simple to understand inside a number of tries, and whereas it by no means actually will get any extra complicated, it requires quite a lot of preparation to outlive. Most ability playing cards have only some makes use of earlier than they have to be replenished by sleeping in a city, and glove field objects (like duct tape, which protects sturdiness, and cigarettes, which prevents lack of power) have restricted makes use of earlier than you may want to purchase extra at fuel stations and comfort shops.

If an occasion depletes you adequate, by emptying your fuel or totaling your engine, it does not imply the top of your run. You may name a tow truck (you probably have the money) to take you to the earlier city, or spend power strolling to the closest fuel station, or in essentially the most dire of circumstances, do the unthinkable: name your mother and father and inform them you need assistance. I needed to do it in certainly one of my runs, and it introduced again the disgrace of doing it (far more than as soon as) in actual life. Fortunately, Hold Driving spares you the precise lecture from Dad.

Want a elevate?

After which there are the hitchhikers. As you cross the map you may encounter solo vacationers making their very own manner via the world: a punk rocker with a canine (who takes up an additional seat), a younger girl in a marriage costume who left her groom on the altar, a burnout who misplaced his job and is estranged from his spouse, a mechanic who will smoke all of your cigarettes. None of them have names, simply labels you would possibly use to explain a stranger: The Child, The Songwriter, The Punk. I assume they consider me as “The Driver.”

At first hitchhikers really feel like they’re only a software to make use of in your street occasions, since every brings a novel ability card to the dashboard, however as you journey collectively they every slowly reveal extra about themselves and their journeys via fast bits of textual content dialog. Drive with them lengthy sufficient and so they’ll unlock new abilities, and ultimately reveal their very own quest you possibly can select to pursue. The Punk needs to go to a membership in a distant city, so are you able to drop him off there? The Bride needs to let unfastened and have some enjoyable: obtained any weed? Extra importantly, as they begin to really feel like pals, or at the very least the sorts of momentary pals you made out of necessity while you have been younger and exploring the world.

Developer YCJY Video games does a formidable job of growing characters who’re, technically, simply pixelated sq. portraits you lock into stock slots. With minimal textual content, their tales and personalities come via, and by the top of the journey it is clear that we’re all crammed into this automotive for a similar motive: as a result of we’re all somewhat broken, somewhat aimless, somewhat adrift.

I used to be genuinely unhappy to see a few of my passengers climb out of the automotive as soon as I might accomplished their quests, and never simply because it meant shedding the additional abilities I might been counting on. (Apart from certainly one of them: I used to be pleased to be rid of a child I might picked up as a result of they stored having to cease to make use of the toilet.)

These characters additionally introduce you to crime, of which there’s an amusing quantity in Hold Driving. I even picked up a man in an orange jail jumpsuit who did not actually persuade me he was harmless. Even him I wound up liking, although he is a ache to handle (nobody will sit subsequent to him) and his preliminary ability is one you must pay $10 a pop for. Weirdly, it wasn’t even him who was the most important troublemaker: a hippie named “The Hurricane” stored wanting me to get excessive, had a ability that would solely be used if I used to be driving whereas drunk, always stuffed my stock slots with trash, and whose third stage means would let me shoplift from shops.

In a sport the place you will be pulled over by the cops and arrested, driving with a gun and a baggie of coke with an escaped convict within the passenger seat positively turns a chill street journey right into a white-knuckle affair.

As required for any memorable street journey, Hold Driving has an completely kickass soundtrack. I am not going to fake I am cool sufficient to have heard of Swedish indie bands like Westkust, Makthaverskan, Zimmer Grandioso, and Fucking Werewolf Asso, however they have a brand new fan and their tracks will probably be a part of my subsequent actual roadtrip. Even certainly one of my hitchhikers, a musician whose guitar took up an annoying quantity of room in my trunk for certainly one of my journeys, offered me with a CD of a few of his songs after we lastly parted methods.

There are greater than a half-dozen endings in Hold Driving in addition to simply attending to that live performance and hanging along with your buddy. (Sure, you will get arrested.) I’ve discovered a number of of them and I am going to maintain taking part in till I’ve collected all of them, after which I will play some extra.

Hold Driving is the type of sport I ought to love on the Steam Deck, however sadly, a number of the interactions like dragging objects round are fairly fiddly and the smaller pixel artwork icons are exhausting to learn on a smaller display screen. In any other case it would be excellent for sinking again into the sofa, getting excessive or drunk (or not, your alternative, say no to see stress), letting the street take you the place it’ll, and making some momentary pals you may always remember.