Puts you off going to a hospital for life.
Outlast is a first-person survival horror title from developer Red Barrels and was released on both PC and Playstation 4. The game focuses on our main protagonist Miles Upshur, who is a reporter that travels to Mount Massive Asylum after receiving a tip about possible illegal activity is being carried out there.
This run and hide formula that was made popular by titles such as Amnesia The Dark Descent has been recently appearing in a lot of different titles with their own take on it. So how does Outlast stand out among the crowd? Simple, it is set in the most terrifying and haunting Insane Asylum you may ever visit in a video game ever. Large amounts of insane patients roam the halls of this asylum and you will come across many during your playthrough, some of them scared, confused or even helpful, but then you meet Chris Walker. This huge powerful patient that was once military police stalks the halls of the asylum, terrorising patients and follows you throughout the game. Think of him as the Nemesis from Resident Evil 3 but roaming a mental asylum, you get the same vibe and he has super human strength that can tear your head from your body at will. This is a non action game, so the only option you have for any enemy encounters is to simply run and hide, but it isn't always that simple. You have the ability to hide under beds, inside toilet stalls, lockers and even in the dark where they can't see you, but you can see them. The running and peeking controls work surprisingly well as you're able to jump over many obstacles with ease, look over your shoulder as you're running from enemies, peek around door frames and corners and push objects in front of doors to stop pursuers.
Miles has one weapon for the majority of the game, his video camera, it may sound useless but trust me it is one of the most useful tool you will need to survive the dark. The video camera is equip with a night vision camera, which gives the dark a green and white tint but you will be able to see when your enemies cannot. The camera is also used to capture footage of horrible events and secrets that you uncover, but these are entirely up to the player to decide to record or not. The Playstation 4 controller also uses the touchpad to control the zoom controls on the video camera, I thought this work really well and made sense. This game is amazingly tense and I literally had to psyche myself up every time I went to play this game because I was so terrified. I highly recommend playing this game with a headset because it is about 10 times more terrifying being able to hear every little creek and noise that miles makes. Miles is a mute for the entire game but his heavy breathing and panicking tone is enough to make your heart pound as loud as his. Even though this game highly succeeds at being absolutely terrifying, but unfortunately not all of the time.
When you happen to die in this game the checkpoint system is very kind, and nothing changes in the environment. This means that every time you die you will know where enemies will come from, what their walking route will be and where your mission objectives are. And the majority of the game when you're not wondering around exploring in terror, are a handful of the same kind of objectives, such as turn on 3 generators or turn 3 valves, and these are often scattered around a large area for you to find with an insane patient roaming around ready to kill you. This game could've definitely benefitted from more variety in gameplay altogether, or even an environment randomiser, for objectives or even enemies. Just so that every time you die you will always be on your toes terrified because you don't exactly know what's going to happen next time.
The story didn't really do anything for me during my entire playthrough. I was too focused on surviving and too scared to even read the notes Miles wrote or files that you can collect throughout the levels. Especially when the game takes a supernatural turn I was just left confused but still terrified.
This game absolutely succeeds in being a horrifyingly, scary good time and you will be scared. Not being able to fight back just adds to the stress and hiding in lockers hoping they won't look for you there, will make your heart skip a beat. If you want to play one of the scariest games in recent times, good luck at getting out of this asylum alive.
Pros
Terrifyingly haunting level and character design.
Great sound editing and voice work creates a tenses and nervous atmosphere.
Fluid running controls make it easy to navigate and complete actions.
Running and hiding is surprisingly adrenaline pumping.
Hiding mechanics work well.
Zooming in with the video camera using the touch pad on the PS4 controller works well.
Headset use makes the game more terrifying.
Cons
The more you die the less scary the game becomes.
Story gets quite confusing when it goes into supernatural themes.
Could've benefited from more variety in gameplay besides running and hiding.