Outlast - Review

At the end of last year, I caught a glimpse of a game called Outlast on a YouTube video called something like 'Horror Games You Need To Wear A Nappy While Playing'.  I am not big into horror movies but I do enjoy the occasional horror game.  I enjoyed Until Dawn, and for the most part the Fear series.  I decided the other evening it might be fun to play a horror game, so I decided to play Outlast.


Marmite.  Even saying it sends shivers down my spine.  It's like when you are making gravy, and you get distracted for a second, it turns into a giant brown lump with mini brown lumps in it.  Imagine how that would taste, and you almost know how bad marmite tastes.  That all being said some people love it, I don't know who they are or why they like it, but to each their own.  Playing Outlast I found myself asking was this my Marmite?

Story

The start of the game is pretty bold, before you have even taken control of investigative reporter Miles Upshur you are given a rundown of the game in the form of a note.  The gist of the note is that that game is filled with blood, gore, and sexual references.  More than that you will only be armed with one item - a video camera to investigate the dark rumors of Mount Massive Asylum.  The Murkoff Corporation runs the facility and is a so-called charity group, two minutes into the game and you might be forgiven for thinking this is a flagrant lie.  I can't really say more than that without ruining the entire plot of the game.

Overall the story is consistently so-so, with the documents you find throughout the game being the only thing of interest, outside of Mile's great notes.  One of my favorite notes has the line '...it looks like someone fuck-started his head with a cheese grater'.  When the final curtain drops the story goes from so-so, to massively disappointing.

Visuals

There are good and bad points about setting a game in an asylum.   One of the good points is that you know it is going to have a freaky vibe, one of the bad points is that an asylum looks like a prison and can often be very samey.  The patients you come across are unnerving the first time you see them but this wears off quickly.  The scariest looking character to me was Trager (pictured above), I mean he clearly works out, and he doesn't even seem to be aware he has tubes stuck in his arms.

Overall the game puts me in mind of the original Fear, due to budget constraints a lot of areas are shrouded in darkness in an attempt to hide the game's underdeveloped visuals.

Music

I like game soundtracks, I think they help add to the overall atmosphere of the game.  There was never a moment during the game I forgot I was in an asylum, but just in case I was tempted to try and forget I would then hear moaning strings and sounds that went down my spine like nails on a blackboard.  The haunting soundtrack was created by French-Canadian composer Samuel Laflamme, who created the music for Tiny Brains and Outlast 2.

While the soundtrack is unnerving it is more like ninety minutes of ambient noise than actual music.  I found it difficult to pick out any one piece that sounded hugely different from any other.  Overall the music/soundscape worked for the game but in no way did it stand out.

Gameplay

The gameplay is relatively simple, use your camera to document all the craziness while trying not to die.  The camera has night vision which is great for seeing the scary things all around you, it eats battery, but luckily and strangely there are spare batteries everywhere.

Lights, camera, run for your life!  There are patients at Mount Massive Asylum that are indifferent to you, and there are others who want to brutally kill you.  You can't fight anyone but you can run and hide, all those of years of getting stuffed into lockers at school finally pays off for Miles who can easily slide inside them, sometimes though to feel really safe he can hide under a bed.  In honesty though with only a few exceptions, you can just run your backside off to escape rather than spending time hiding. 

Overall there is not a lot to the gameplay and the only break you have from running and hiding is flicking switches and pressing buttons.  Oh wait, you will also have to run and hide then as well.  I feel the gameplay could have had a little more to it and the camera mechanic got old fast.

Final Thoughts

So, after eight hours of play how did I feel?  Underwhelmed and disappointed.  The story is so-so and the ending was quite disappointing.  The visuals were scary in parts but generally quite dull.  The music/soundscape worked for the game worked for the game but lacked a certain something.  The gameplay itself started interesting but like most of the other elements became dull quickly.  Overall this one gets 2 out of 5 and Mile's note below certainly sums up my feelings about this game.