{"id":11649,"date":"2018-04-22T00:45:24","date_gmt":"2018-04-22T07:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/desolate-review-a-hidden-horror-gem-emerges\/"},"modified":"2024-01-24T17:17:28","modified_gmt":"2024-01-25T01:17:28","slug":"desolate-review-a-hidden-horror-gem-emerges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/desolate-review-a-hidden-horror-gem-emerges\/","title":{"rendered":"Desolate Review \u2013 A Hidden Horror Gem Emerges"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Desolate<\/strong>
\nHypeTrain Digital<\/strong><\/p>\n

My friend and I began our journey unceremoniously dropped off on the eastern side of Granichny Island. The entire island had been an experimental locale utilized by the mysterious \u201cThe New Light\u201d conglomerate, where they conducted their nefarious research unimpeded. But it had recently become the epicenter of a catastrophic event of unknown origins, at least to the outside world.<\/p>\n

The conglomerate had undertaken a massive-scale campaign of finding out how to rectify the disastrous situation by sending \u201cVolunteers\u201d out to the island in order to see what exactly is going on. We were two such Volunteers, and like all of the other ones we were unarmed and given orders to search the island for clues as to what happened.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

My fellow Volunteer, in reality a good gaming buddy of mine who is just as squeamish about survival horror games as I am, first noticed how creepy the island\u2019s environments were. We stood next to a campfire and it was nighttime, and the light of the fire only carried so far and then disappeared into swirling fog and ominous shifting shadows.<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay, we might as well do this,\u201d I said in a half-baked attempt to galvanize my friend into action. Actually, I wanted him to go out into the mists first. We begrudgingly began walking towards the first building we could see. It was a large warehouse by the shore next to a few other buildings. I reminded my friend, who was walking around upright, that we should probably be utilizing our \u201ccrouching wimp technique,\u201d which consisted of carefully moving forward in a semi-squatting posture.<\/p>\n

My friend let out some sort of sound that reminded me of a squeaking rodent and I glanced over to see what he was dealing with. Not too far from our position I spied what looked like some sort of four-legged creature with a large gaping maw moving towards us. We both shrieked in our mics and took off running in the opposite direction.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It took us a few moments to stop sprinting and recover some semblance of composure. Then we gradually gathered enough courage to sneak back down to the general area, just not where the same beastie had been spotted. We approached another building at the opposite end of the small compound and snuck through a back door, thinking that we\u2019d have a better chance of being unnoticed. That was a mistake.<\/p>\n

Just as soon as we entered into what looked like a storage building, the dark, ghostly silhouette of a little girl flashed into existence right in front of us. It emitted some bizarre lullaby-sounding utterances. We couldn\u2019t have turned around and bolted any faster. In fact, as we tried to scramble back through the same door, we got stuck, apparently trying to do our best Laurel & Hardy impersonation.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

If my first game of HypeTrain Digital\u2019s new survival horror extravaganza, Desolate,<\/em> is any indication of how effectively scary it is, then you can probably surmise that horror fans are in for a real treat. It\u2019s also a very original title that should be applauded for not relying on the same old tired horror tropes that most game developers lazily fall back on.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve read a couple of Steam reviews that described (rather reductively) Desolate<\/em> as a combination of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.<\/em> and Dead Island<\/em>. While I would partially agree with the S.T.A.L.K.E.R.<\/em> comparison, Dead Island<\/em> though, is totally off. Instead of utilizing the same old, tired, worn out zombie template, Desolate <\/em>has some of the most original monsters and weird entity designs I\u2019ve seen in a horror title.<\/p>\n

For instance, during my playtime, I encountered various demonic-looking, red-eyed madmen; mysterious electromagnetic entities; ravenous warg-like monstrosities; and phantoms that seemed to materialize right in front of me at just the right (or wrong in my case!) moments. All of these enemies were quite deadly.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Considering that if you do find a firearm, it\u2019ll have limited ammo, and that melee weapons wear down over time, you\u2019ll really have to pace yourself and choose your enemies carefully. Therefore, utilizing the game\u2019s handy stealth mechanic is a must if you want to survive for longer than a few minutes. You can also sneak up on certain foes and administer one-hit kills if you\u2019re ninja enough.<\/p>\n

I was also pleased to find that Desolate<\/em> has a full crafting system with many different recipes that you can discover and equally diverse types of resources that you can gather. And you won\u2019t see any unrealistically glowing items within the game\u2019s environs. Therefore, you have to scour through areas very carefully and see what items you can interact with and which ones you can\u2019t. As a nice touch, the game also sports an encumbrance system, so you can\u2019t go around carrying all kinds of heavy equipment, since each item has a certain amount of weight to it.<\/p>\n

Desolate\u2019s<\/em> open world campaign play consists of going to different locations, looking for clues as to what happened on the island. You also receive tasks such as re-activating a power station or investigating a distant lighthouse. The island\u2019s various enemies roam the island, while some of them linger around or guard certain objectives.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Overall, Desolate<\/em> is a fantastically effective fright-fest that will keep gamers on their toes. It has great atmosphere, fright-tastic enemies, an interesting storyline, and immersive visuals and sound design. What\u2019s also scary about the game itself is how much potential it has since it\u2019s only been in Early Access for two months. Try it out with up to three of your friends and see for yourself.<\/p>\n

SCORE: 81%<\/p>\n

Desolate <\/em>features outstanding graphics that make its survival horror gameplay truly shine. However, you want to have a pretty beefy gaming PC or gaming laptop in order to play it at a decent framerate. So, you may just want to invest in a decent gaming rig:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
SPRING GAMING TRACER II 15 VR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Visit CyberpowerPC\u2019s website<\/a> to check out all of the other great deals as well!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Desolate HypeTrain Digital My friend and I began our journey unceremoniously dropped off on the eastern side of Granichny Island. The entire island had been an experimental locale utilized by the mysterious \u201cThe New Light\u201d conglomerate, where they conducted their nefarious research unimpeded. But it had recently become the epicenter of a catastrophic event of… Read More »Desolate Review \u2013 A Hidden Horror Gem Emerges<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":11576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2724],"tags":[2520,741,2488,2527,1225,67,2486,2548,2570],"class_list":["post-11649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-4k-gaming","tag-cyberpower-pc","tag-game-review","tag-game-reviews-2","tag-gaming-laptop","tag-gaming-pc","tag-ian-kane","tag-open-world-games","tag-survival-horror-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11649"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16529,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11649\/revisions\/16529"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}