Recent reviews by PuncturedPancake

This is genuinely one of the few games that has made me excited again in the past twenty-one years. I don't know if that says something about my life, or what. The style isn't too tongue-and-cheek, yet comedic at the same time. It brings back the good old days of Half-Life, with friends, and Project Zomboid.

You ever seen Ratatouille? Where the depressed food critic takes a singular bite, and is drawn back to wistful memories of his childhood, happy days, simpler times and comfort? That's how I feel when playing this game.

God, I love weaponized autism. It's like the Marine Corps except- wait, no, yeah it's just like the Marine Corps.

Just like my faith in the Emperor of Man, I have faith in this game. It's a refined combat formula of Vermintide that just needs more fluff and time in the oven. My prayers and sacred oil go out to Fatshark and their burning blessed servers.

Still ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ love this game though.

"There are over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulation. That's one firearm for every twelve people on the planet. The only question is: How do we arm the other 11?"

I can now live out my Blackwater fantasy.

Why fight for a country, when money says it better?

As much as I hate this games lag and latency issues, I love this game to bits and I can't stop loving this game.

When you get a good fight going with a good kit, there is nothing in your way.

Let me give you a even shorter TLDR

Game good, hard to get into, watch some youtube tutorials, don't spend your certs on guns, get good.

You know. Everyone bashes this game and I understand why. It's another early access survival horror game that might not get finished. It has thirst and hunger mechanics and it claims to be different in one way or another. In reality I actually found myself getting quite invested in this game and having a lot of fun with my friends. Sometimes I'd even find myself getting creeped out or scared by the locations and settings. I'll start off with what I hate the most.

The optimization and framerate can be pretty bad at times. Like every other early access game. I never found myself crashing though, just sometimes I would have to deal with chugging or framerate drops. It's not the end of the world and it didn't really get under my skin.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ traumas. I feel like most of the time all they did was get in the way of gameplay. I get hit once by a madman and next thing you know I have stage 4 cancer and brain hemmoraghing. I feel like the treatment system can either be tweaked or maybe this can be removed all together. I would prefer a tweaking though as I didn't find myself hating the system that much.

The crafting, I feel like the crafting system can be more fleshed out because for right now it feels like a pain. Crafting smaller stuff like salves or joints is okay but later on in the game when you have to go to a work bench and make a specefic set of tools, steel, gunpowder. Etc. Just to make one shotgun bullet. I rarely found myself using the crafting system because I either found the requirements were too high I could just go buy it or loot it.

The quests ranged from go here grab this to HOLY CRAP WHAT IS THAT PLEASE GOD GET THE GUN GET THE GUN! Some quests were easy and felt like filler but other quests had us sent out to creepy locations to kill big bad scary things. Sometimes even giving us some nice backstory on what we are killing and why we are killing it. Other times me and my friends had to go repair stations, go underground cave diving, or even just creepy general exploration. Was it god tier questing like the Witcher 3? No, but I still managed to have fun.

The combat. The combat in Desolate is pretty bare bones in it's own ways. You can light attack, heavy attack for more damage, sneak attack, and throw rocks at enemies to stun them (Sometimes). I still found myself having fun with the combat. Sometimes I felt certain enemies were a little bit spongey but with some dedication and me and my friends screaming "GET THAT MOTHA! GET THAT MOTHA LIKE KODAC BLACK! GIVE HIM THE SHOVEL! GIVE HIM THE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ SHOVEL!" There is also gunplay in the game but with ammo being a commodity it's usually used for enemies you either REALLY don't want to deal with or enemies way out of your league.

The story, I enjoyed the story of Granichny. I won't compare it to H.P lovecraft or anything but it had some nice aspects and some spooky story telling. Some things were explained nicely and I felt like I was actually somewhat into the story. Was I getting dragged in like this story was my life? No, I just enjoyed listening to it and following it as I played the game.

Looting, I found looting worth my time nine times out of ten. I either found a component I needed, weaponry, or something else useful to my survival. I never really found myself dissapointed when looking in a weapons crate or in certain boxes. Even in lower tier item spawns I found myself still satisfied sometimes.

Conclusion, what would I give this game? 7-8/10 with friends. 6-7/10 without them. I could see you getting burned out if you don't have a good friend group. But if you have twenty bucks and you and your friends want a fun playful survival horror experience. I would reccomend this. it's definitely not for everybody but if you think you would be interested in this game, you probably are.