Outlast

(mild early-game spoilers) At the beginning of the game, the main character (a reporter) enters an asylum he is investigating through some scaffolding. He immediately sees (and records with his camcorder) a bunch of blood on the floor of the room he enters, walks into a hall with blood smeared on the walls, hears a door slam shut, and enters a kitchen with intestines on the counter and a vent dripping in blood. So my first thought is to backtrack to the window I came in, and leave with the evidence I recorded. I mean blood and wreaked furniture should be pretty damning evidence to collect. But despite the window I entered still being open, my character refuses to exit through the window. So I'm forced to stupidly go through the bloody vent to progress despite it being kind of a red flag for, you know, a psycho murderer on the other end. So I kept playing, but my first impression is that this character is some sort of masochist who wants whatever bloody thing is on the other side of that vent. And from this point the game just gets silly. There are jump scares galore. The asylum patients look like Batman villains with deformed bodies, who like to throw you around a bit but won't kill you right away for some reason. There's an impaled dude that gives like 3 minute exposition dump. It all feels so silly. And it doesn't do anything remarkable game-play wise either. It's the usual "find a key to do this", "turn a lever to open this", "collect batteries for yo flashlight", "read this letter for exposition dump", etc. It all feels very cliche. It's a shame because the game has a promising concept and pretty solid graphics / audio to boot (for an Indie developer). But the inconsistent world and larger focus on Halloween house scare tactics makes Outlast feel more like streamer bait than a deep psychological horror experience.

The primary emotion that Outlast evokes is not horror, but aggravation. Its terrible gameplay utterly ruins the game. In fact, ‘gameplay’ is not an accurate term, because Outlast doesn’t really have any. Instead, the player *must* move in exactly the right spots where the devs want him/her to go, at very precise moments, or die. The player has no freedom to do anything other than follow one exact path – with surgical precision. Of course, the player has no idea where the one & only ‘correct’ path is, nor how to access it. Consequently, while searching for it, the player will be killed repeatedly. The only way to learn the ‘right’ way to go is through trial & error: by dying, then reloading the same section dozens – or hundreds – of more times. One could also watch youtube videos of people beating each section, but that destroys the purpose of playing the game. In any case, the horror atmosphere of Outlast is absolutely obliterated by this unavoidable mechanic of “die repeatedly and then reload the same section endlessly.” How are you going to be scared as a result of seeing the same enemy kill you in the same way for the 57th time in a row? You are not going to be scared – just aggravated. These things happen because Outlast is entirely pre-scripted and “on the rails” to the maximum possible extreme. Unless the player moves in the exact right places at the exact right times, then the next pre-scripted events fail to trigger, thus the player cannot progress. The aforementioned problems are compounded by the devs’ abysmal decision not to let the player save the game. Outlast uses a “Checkpoint” system that saves *only at* pre-determined places. This means that if you’ve died to the same enemy 73 times in a row, and then reload for the 74th time, and finally make it 95% of the way to the next Checkpoint before you die again, then all of that progress is erased. When you reload for the 75th time, you will be back to ground zero of that section.

The most overrated horror game I ever played. From "hide and seek" subgenre, even Clock Tower (1993, SNES game) was much, much scarier than Outlast - random, trial and error running simulator with stupid Quake II-looking enemies. Better go to the basement with your camera, it is more frightening and for free. If this is how modern horror game looks like, please take me back to 90s/2000s when Silent Hill (1-3), Fatal Frame (1-4), Forbidden Siren (1-2) appeared and were appreciated - it's not nostalgia, some of them I finished recently for the first time. If you want to play FPP horror, take any Frictional Games title like Amnesia, SOMA or Penumbra, Condemned is also not bad. From 2019 Resident Evil 2 Remake is pretty good. Outlast is maybe scary for children and people who never play any good horror videogame (no, Dead Space and F.E.A.R are not horror games - they're just action shooters).

Hmm, my first real horror game and...I was not that impressed really. The scripted scare jumps did get to me at times, but the story was just confusing and thus it was difficult for me to be immersed. I suppose if you play the game a second time it will make more sense, but don't think it hides the truth that the story is a bit incoherent and mostly presented by random gibberish and weird scribbled notes. Neither was the overall scariness that high, I feel that even simple action games with horror elements gave me more goosebumps than this ever did. However, this is probably a subjective thing as I can see other reviewers think this is so different because you have to hide and can't fight, but since everything is so scripted the fear quickly dies when you know every single scare jump after being dead several times. Have to say, I played on the second highest level, so I died a lot which also made the game a bit repetitive at times. But yeah, it is an okay horror game. Just don't expect to be overwhelmed or surprised as the hype has been a bit strong.

This is going down as one of my favorite horror games ever. I usually don't enjoy these "coward simulators" as another reviewer put, but this one speaks to me. As the title says it is a short game. It only took me 3 hours to beat and I can see someone taking at most 6 hours. The story of outlast is mostly left in hidden documents around the asylum that you can collect and the silent protagonist writes down notes when the camcorder sees something of interest. However this in no way affects you experience if you decide not to go for them. You'll just be clued out of some stories. The gameplay is broken down into either exploring, being chased or solving a puzzle to progress. There are parts of the game that allows you to look around your area unimpeded by enemies, allowing you take in the sites and sounds. Then there are chase sequences of you running from the variants and trying to escape them. Finally there are small open-ended areas where you will have to find items or turn valves to proceed through to the next level, usually being chased by a variant during this. Now this game has no combat system, your choices are to run, hide or die. The only tool you have on you is a camera equipped with night vision, allowing you to pier into the darkness. However this drains your battery and there is a limited supply scattered around the asylum., so use it sparingly. The graphics, sound effects and music are top notch. They will seamlessly immerse you into the world of Outlast. Exploring Mount Massive was a total joy to do when the game is as good looking as this, however there is this weird grain effect on the screen. I tried removing, but it didn't work. It doesnt really affect the gameplay, it just looks weird at some points, but by no means something to make you stop playing. This is a must buy game for any fans of Horror. The game goes for $20 normally and $3 on sale. It is well worth buying at that price and is a must snatch when it's on sale.