Saturday 10 January 2015

REVIEW: OUTLAST

REVIEW: OUTLAST

WARNING: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Kiss your loved ones, make your peace with your God, and get your night-vision camcorder ready. Tonight, Dos Eat Dog reviews Outlast (2013) for the PC. A Change of underwear may be required.


Outwit... Outplay... Outlast...


... errr...

I think it's important to say that I loved this game. Because so much of the way I describe it might make it sound like I hate it; which is precisely why I love it. How often in life can you call something horrific, brutal, unpleasant, nauseating and unbearable and actually be praising it? The thing is, that's exactly what Outlast sets out to be, and it does as good a job as any other game that has tried.


When I asked him to wash his hands, this isn't what I had in mind


Good Lord! I mean... Um...

It's hard to make progress in Outlast, and that's not to say that the game is difficult. It's actually pretty easy to solve the challenges of one chapter and progress to the next. This may seem like a weakness, but it's not. Oddly enough, once an enemy has killed you in a given area, it loses some of it's power. You begin to see it for what it is: a video game monster. You begin to look for the patterns of it's movement: the paths it walks along, the length of it's pauses. It's no longer a monster threatening your life, but a challenge to be bested. You can't engage your enemies in combat, you have to hide from them. It goes without saying that this helps to build tension to an insane amount, so I thought I should say it.


Hiding behind some shelves

That's not what makes it hard to proceed. It's hard to make progress because the game does such a good job of filling you with dread that when you find a safe corner to hide in, you just want to stay there. You don't want to go down the next hallway because you know that whatever you find will be horrific. I found myself taking far too long exploring rooms I knew were "safe", checking under desks and behind boxes, and rechecking, without even realizing that I was killing time because I was too anxious to proceed. The game just fires so perfectly on ever fear inducing cylinder. The musical cues, the lighting, the ambient noise of an asylum in revolt; it all works so well together to build tension that when something horrible does happen to the player character it's almost a relief. At least I'm being murdered now, instead of just experiencing the unbearable anticipation of being murdered.


Ummm, I better check this enclosed stairwell twelve times before I proceed


This little light of mine... I'm gonna... let... Sigh...


"Get my good side, huh?"


Outlast is brutal from start to finish. Massacred corpses and demented blood scrawled messages are standard set decoration throughout the Mount Massive asylum. While the game is beautiful looking, there's no beauty in the game, no bright glint of sunshine on the horizon. It's just unrelenting. But beyond that, the game is truly horrific in how it builds tension. Brutality and tension do not necessarily a good horror game make; but, Outlast has that and more. The base emotion that the game invokes is anxiety. That's the most you have to look forward to, and it only gets worse from there. Anxiety is so ever present that the game can actually be physically tiring to play. There's only so long you can maintain tension before you're exhausted.


This party's invitation only

You play the game as Miles Upshur, a photojournalist looking to uncover the grim truth behind the involvement of the Murkoff corporation at the Mount Massive Asylum. The photojournalist conceit provides the game with perhaps it's most innovative and interesting feature: A camcorder with a built in night vision mode. You'll need to collect batteries from around the map, and be conservative about how often you use your night vision. If you play your cards right, you shouldn't ever really run out of batteries. With that being said, I ran out of batteries on more than one occasion through misuse, an unwillingness to turn my night vision off even when it wasn't entirely necessary; and there's nothing more terrifying than running out of batteries in a pitch black sewer while a seven foot tall mental case searches for you. You become almost psychologically reliant on the camera as you progress through the game. It's your only friend, the only witness to your struggles as you progress deeper into the asylum. It's also your only weapon, such as it is. The only thing protecting you from the monsters in the dark. The game seems to realize this, and when it takes your camera away during a characteristically tense chapter, you feel naked and alone; you're literally unable to proceed until you get the camera back.


Your camera's nightvision setting will allow you to see in the dark, even when you'd really rather not

Beyond that, Miles is really a blank slate. He's a silent protagonist who exists mainly as a conduit for the player to experience the environment, and I think that may be for the best. Some reviews have cited this as a weak point, saying they prefer a protagonist with some personality. But, really the less Miles infuses the game with his personality, the more freely you are able to infuse Miles with your personality. Occasionally recording an event with your camera will give you a glimpse of Miles' thought process in the form of a hand scrawled note which gets added to your journal. These notes are not far off from what your actual reaction might be, and that spark of recognition actually makes them a little humorous. There's something funny about Miles writing "Fuck, Fuck, Fuck," or calling someone a douchebag. This doesn't by any means lessen the immersion of the game, but it definitely lessens the tension.


Yeah, that flayed madman who severed your fingers sure is an audi-driving douchebag

Horror games have become a dime a dozen since the success of amnesia. There are countless independently developed, free to play games out there to fulfil your horror jones. It turns out, it's actually pretty easy to scare people. A little bit of darkness, the odd jumpscare, and you're set. But, while many of those games may be able to scare you, very few of them are actually "good". There's something difficult to quantify about what makes a good horror game.  It takes something special to stand out in the field now. It's easy to be a scary game, but it's hard to be a scary game that's good. For one thing, you need a good story, which Outlast has. You uncover the dark secrets of the Asylum by picking up documents and recording events. These documents will give you back story on the lunatics that haunt the asylum, and stalk you. On the one hand, they're totally perfunctory; just an excuse to move you from one scare to the next.  But on the other hand, they really do elevate the game beyond "just another indie horror" into the realm of "horror classic".


Plot elements are revealed through collectible documents

Another element that helps to elevate Outlast beyond "just another indie horror" are the enemies. The place is chalk full of standard malformed lunatics, but for the most part they're just scenery. It's Outlast's "boss" equivalents that you have to watch out for. There's a giant of a man who can lift you with one hand and separate your head from your body; two creepy psychically linked twins; and a crazy Murkoff financier playing doctor named Taggart. The Taggart chapter is probably my favorite in the game, and his casual demeanor as he wheels you through his chamber of horrors helps to highlight the insanity of the environment. One of the most effective "I'm doomed" moments of the game takes place as he wheels you into an elevator near the asylum's exit, and you watch helplessly as it slides out of view while your taken deeper into the bowels of the building.


His visual acuity is based on movement...


Taggart, Soliloquizing before he preforms some cosmetic surgery


... The horror...


... The absolute horror...


An asylum may seem like a cliche place to set a horror game. But it's such an effective one, who cares? And besides, all is not as it appears at the Mount Massive Asylum. As it turns out, the place is a front for what seems to be some sort of military experiment, and the final portion of the game takes place in the underground bunker where "Project Walrider" is being developed. The lunatics of the asylum refer to the Walrider as though it were an actual entity, haunting the halls of the asylum... And even a broken clock is right twice a day, as it turns out. To tell you the truth, I'm still not entirely sure what the Walrider entity is, the plot surrounding it seems somewhat ambiguous. It involves Nazis and Alan Turing and nano machines and lunatic powered machines. There are hints about it's true nature, but only hints. And it's probably better that way.  Apparently, the Walrider entity is loosely based on a German folkloric creature known alternatively as an Alp... But this connection seems to be very, very loose. According to wikipedia, the German Walrider concerns itself with "souring milk" and "re-diapering babies", and can change into a cat, a pig, or a small white butterfly... a far cry from the murderous, unstoppable killing machine featured in the game.


The Project Walrider bunker below Mount Massive


The walrider entity in outlast


The folkloric Alp as depicted in the 1802 painting by Johann Heinrich Fussli, "Nightmare". He's such a little stinker! 


Y'know, I envy you Billy.

Outlast is just a great game. It's possibly the best horror game ever made. The soundtrack is amazing, the enemies are fantastic, the environment of the Mount Massive Asylum is mortared with abject terror. But, like all horror games, this game isn't for everyone. I love the horror genre, because to me it's so informative in regards to what makes people tick. What scares us? To me that is just an interesting subject to explore. I've acknowledged in past reviews that I love being scared, I love the genre, and I absolutely love when it's done well. So, if you're a horror fan you have to play this game. It's a must play. It's at least in the top five horror games of all time. If you don't like the horror genre, if you're even a little bit squeamish, then you should avoid this game like the plague. Because, it will make you simultaneously shit and piss your pants, and then vomit... Also on your pants.

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