deORBIT Review

Stuck in space, endless space, all alone inside of an abandoned station. DeOrbit is a non-linear first-person puzzle explorer that will challenge your brain in a way that other games do not. Your character wakes up in the middle of a space colony that has been partially destroyed by god knows what. There is no power, oxygen is running out and it is up to you to find a way out. The game consists of four different stories that are intertwined and it’s up to you to find out exactly what happened to your fellow colonists. This game is extremely difficult and not for those who don’t enjoy spending time figuring things out.

You must navigate, repair, and survive in what is anything but a newb-friendly environment. Your task is to gather materials you find around the station and fix up doors, generators and whatever else it takes to get yourself to safety. You will find things just floating around that can be of great use to you, from batteries to air filters, and on occasion a martini glass.

You start off with nothing more than a flashlight, a note that says lab 22, . You are also greeted with a series of controls that will have you learning how to move through zero gravity. I’m still not sure whether it was just me, however I found that the controls were extremely aggravating to use. I also found that the movement was a little imprecise and sluggish when moving about, when trying to fit my character through air locks and doors I found that it was extremely difficult to actually gauge if my character was lined up with the entryway.

The graphics are fairly well done for such a small studio, lighting and lack of lighting in certain areas make you feel as if you are truly stranded in space. Unfortunately, there is a lack of imagination and originality. The space station has little to make it stand out from space stations seen in any other game. The sound is rather lackluster, as in there is very little of it. I suppose I can’t really complain that there aren’t many ambient sound effects, considering you’re playing a space game, however I did expect there to be some music in the background. It made the game feel rather empty and bland without any background music, even games where you are stranded on islands and other areas of music to go with the game's ambient sounds.

While the game’s sounds and music are rather disappointing, the gameplay is in a sense even more depressing. This game is hard, like Dark Souls times 200 hard. Seriously the game gives you very little direction from the start and while I enjoy games that are a challenge this one is almost too difficult. You are given few directions and at the beginning I didn’t even understand what I was actually supposed to be doing. If you’re looking for a game that will take up hours of problem solving with little reward then you should try this game out, however if you don’t like banging your head against an asteroid over and over, I would not recommend this.

DeORBIT is an interesting addition to the survival genre, but it will drive you to the moon with insanity. The game’s graphics are perhaps the best feature of the game, however everything else falls a bit short compared to other survival games that have been released in the past. The game’s audio is very lacking and the overall gameplay is far too challenging for the average gamer. If you are looking for a game that will challenge you mentally for hours then go ahead and give DeORBIT a go. From what I have played, the game is bug free just challenging.