Game Review: Outlast

Holy horror, hotman – I have been indoctrinated into the world of Outlast and Outlast: Whistleblower. Sure, it’s been out since September 2013 on my only gaming platform – the personal computer – but I only really found out about it in like. . .December 2014.

And then Outlast: Whistleblower was released May 6, 2014. I just got on that band wagon with gusto!

These are both designed by Red Barrels Games - and I hope they make a lot more stuff that is this good! They are not available on a variety of platforms, but, I stick to my PC for everything.

As a non-warning – there are NO spoilers in this entry. Unless you click links.

Premises - Outlast
I play mild-manned dumbass Miles Upshure who is sure he is going to get the story of a lifetime after some equally mannered and dumb guy emailed him that weird crap has been happening on Mount Massive Asylum - a remote psychiatric hospital situated deep in the mountains of Lake County, Colorado and owned by the Murkoff Corporation, known for its corrupt dealings.

Lake County, Colorado

I mean, I guess it’s assumed “Miles” couldn't be a girl’s name, right?

Let’s just take a moment to review how I would deal with this situation:

Not Miles Upshure. Nope. He’s going for that investigative journalist of the century award. All he needs is a positive attitude and a camcorder!

Upshure has some important “psychiatric hospital situated deep in the mountains” life skills. These include:

• Sweet parkour moves.
• A steady hand (to record the horror with the night vision feature on the camcorder).
• Pockets for batteries.
• Champion hiding-under-the-bed abilities.
• Not being a screamer.
• Writing personal thoughts while on the run from malevolent nanite-driven beings. 

Let’s review my life skills - in photographic form:

I'm incompetent

Game Play
The game play is my fav – first person shooter (guns, vomit, tears – all can be shot out of you and at you in this classification of game). You basically wander around softly crying to yourself and screaming. If you are me, you wonder why everyone is covered in pizza. Oh wait. . .that's. . not. . .oh.

Because this is America, you can play at night, alone with the lights turned down and a pee-pad.

Unlike other types of horror or first person shooter games, Upshure has little to no skills (see above). He’s a tough dude, though – he takes a good amount of beatings and keeps getting up. He cannot survive beyond what a “normal human” can, though, and he has no combat skills – there is no hand-to-hand combat here. This might be a little different than those classic games where you get shot and whatever - like in Doom or Call of Duty - and you keep moving. You don't have a life meter - such things would be as pointless as a positive attitude.

Upshure can endure only about four strikes of a baseball bat to the head. The first make the other three possible.

Most of his skills seem to really come out due to the motivation of the situations, such as:

• A huge sadistic self-mutilator with superhuman strength.
• Blood.
• Cannibals. 
• Delusional doctors. 
• Mass-murdering psychopaths.
• Mutilated corpses of  SWAT team members.
• Pastels. 

Super Game Points
Watching other people play this is another game all in itself. I was very impressed with the whole game. Seriously.

• Graphics: Spot on. Gory, horrible, excellent. There is a lot of detail in this game and a lot of Easter eggs from some Army of Darkness references to the use of “Red Barrels.” And the gore. I totally had to watch this on YouTube a lot to pause and really take in the features of the characters and even items. I even really liked how your own vision fades or panics.
• Sound: Awesome again! Even the hard breathing, the chatter of other characters and ambient music is immersive. I think I can see and hear this place in my dreams. I think it would smell a lot like lilac and bacon, though. 
• Story: The story is not super-dramatic or involved – which is good for this type of game. You can get by without knowing anything, but, every file and conversation will tell you more about the situation and history of Mount Massive. If you are someone who wants that level of detail, it is there. If not, it won’t hurt your game play to not know. 
• Characters: Believe it or not, the dialog is very character specific. Even though you don’t spend a lot of time – hopefully – with each character, they are very distinctive. This is super awesome because a lot of times these games treat your threats as a pre-packaged deal. Adding this true element of character to these inmates really ups the horror. No minions here, my friends. You can even read more about the characters and what they have gone through if you want to fully engage in the story.
• Scare factor: 10 out of 10! Not only is the premise of running around and hiding from people who want to kill you in the dark a classic scare factor, the characters scary. Even the ones who aren’t really out to kill you – just seeing them walking, lingering and occasionally leaping out at you is enough to make you change your pee pad. The game almost laughs at you by scaring you – who didn’t jump at the TV turning on? Hmm? Or feel really odd walking past inmates just. .sitting there. . .

Parting Thoughts
I think this is a game you should probably play with a friend on a Sunday afternoon with all the lights on. Or at night, alone, with headphones on and all the lights off – and a pee pad under you. This game will make you cry.

And it is beyond awesome. The bar has been raised.