Outlast

This is not the most sophisticated but it does deliver intense visceral thrills. It works really well if you try to avoid enemies as much as you can and if you have to hide from one try to leap out of the hiding space when they're fairly close but before they actually find you. This tends to give you just a few seconds head start. Basically they were so surprised that they don't run after you immediately. I've never experienced the stealth and chase mechanics actually failing. Anytime that there is an enemy you want to hide from you can always find a good hiding spot. This is not true of all stealth games. Almost nothing gets my pulse quite as high as this. It's also great the way that you can sometimes block a door by pushing something in front of it after you close it behind you. There are some very memorable antagonists in this and they do a pretty good job of spacing it out so you never tire of any individual one. The plot is fairly ridiculous and mostly exists to stitch together a bunch of levels and scares. Its graphics are pretty good. The pacing definitely does feel like a roller coaster. Personally I think the pacing is better in the Penumbra and Amnesia games. In this one it kind of goes very extreme from almost right away. There's a room maybe four minutes into this that has 10 decapitated heads. You don't see the results of violence quite that intense right away in those games. It was only on one of my replays especially when I had just played Frictional Games titles but eventually I did end up kind of wishing that this would have just slightly more complexity to puzzles and such. Basically there's some key hunts other than that it really is just going from point a to point b. I believe the idea was that they wanted you to focus entirely on the enemy encounters and not be distracted from them by the puzzles. And in fairness I do think that for example Amnesia the Dark Descent has the polar opposite problem, though I do overall prefer that to this.

I get nausea because of the head swaying/bobbing. You cannot switch it off, so I quit after 5 min. Also, you cannot save a game. Poor design decisions.

This is my first time playing it, despite it being so old. Normally I'm not so much into horror/survival, but this changed my view on these type of games. Really nice game.

The ideas of this game are very interesting, and the graphics still hold up well today. But honestly i dont think this is a 10/10 like many people would let you belive, maybe more of a 6,5 or 7 out of 10. The gameplay gets repetetive pretty quickly, you just run a around with your camera with some guy chasing you while you must complete a task consisting of 3 parts (like opening 3 valves). It kinda gets boring and less scary after a while. But honestly if you are more interested in the story then the gameplay and the game is on sale for a few Euros, i would still recommend this game for you, especially for the great atmosphere it has. The Whistleblower DLC is way better then the main game IMO.

It's been probably around 8-10 years since I played and finished Outlast, and let me tell you it aged like fine wine. It's still very good looking, soundtrack is peak, gameplay is simple but fun and the atmosfere is rich. It took me shockingly only 2 hours to beat (I still remember most of the locations and enemies), but it was great time with good pacing. It was nice nostalgy trip and maybe who knows in how many years I might visit this Asylum again and experince it once again.