Outlast

Outlast is one of the many similar horror games to come out after Amnesia: The Dark Descent. It is also one of the few that succeeded at becoming hugely popular -- for some reason. The game was given away for free last year, I think, and I decided to finally see what's the fuss about, because of October and Halloween, I guess.

A simple horror game

You play as Miles Upshur, an investigative journalist who has received a tip about questionable stuff going on at Mount Massive Asylum.

The atmosphere inside the facility turned out be undeniably spooky. It didn't last very long, however. The game lost most of its scariness when I encountered the first enemy: a guy with a stick. Miles apparently outruns all enemies in the game and as long as you don't rush into a dead end, you're fine. There are slightly more unsettling foes too but the same tactic applies. I could almost hear Yakety Sax playing in the background every time I was fleeing.

Later, a couple of jumpscares still managed to get me although I also missed twice as many because I was looking in the wrong direction and didn't see what/who appeared on the screen. Such moments should probably be scripted but depending on the game it could be annoying too to have control taken away from you.

First person horror games generally don't support adjusting FOV either. Maybe sometimes due to negligence but probably also to prevent body part clipping and such. Keeping immersion is important. Outlast is no exception but it being an Unreal Engine 3 game, editing the FOV values is easy.

Outlast tries to disturb you with gore too but I don't think that has ever worked for me in games or movies. Miles's breathing becoming faster and louder when he's scared I found to be a better way to build up tension -- during quiet parts particularly. It works almost as well as the heart pumping in Alien: Isolation when you wait for transit for the first time.

Large parts of Outlast are really dark and you need to use your video camera's night vision to see where you're going. It of course drains batteries but on Normal difficulty that won't be a problem. Mechanics-wise the game is lacking. That's why it's good it doesn't last too long though it could've been even shorter. With the Whistleblower DLC, Outlast took me 8 hours to beat in total.

The DLC is more of the same but I did like how it felt like it gave closure to the game. It takes places mostly concurrently with the base game as you play as the guy who tipped off Miles in the first place.

A sequel to the game, Outlast 2, came out last year. I don't intent to get it at any point but might play through it just for the heck of it if it's given away for free.