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dkirschner's Outlast (PC)
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| [February 2, 2017 09:31:04 PM]
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Excellent horror game. Reminiscent of Amnesia. You’re a journalist. You’re armed with a camcorder. Okay, armed isn’t the right word because all you can do is look through it. And run and hide. Which you will do a fair amount of. I hope you like night vision mode and managing battery life. If you are a person whose iPhone constantly runs out of charge, you might lose at Outlast.
The story is pretty good. You go investigate a psychiatric hospital. I forget why you are there. I’m not sure it is discussed, as the game begins with you pulling up in your jeep. Perhaps it was on the radio on the drive over, but my brain has since been filled with the screams of the insane. Quickly realize that a generic evil science corporation has been conducting psychic experiments on the residents. One is ultra-strong; one is obsessed with fire; two twins want to eat your liver and show some developer bravado for being nude and showing penises; a fanatical priest wants to use you as mankind’s salvation; and there’s a serious threat by the name of Billy who sort of runs the show. Pick up documents to reveal additional story details about patients, doctors, experiments, connections to CIA research like MK Ultra, etc.
Your goal is to escape the hospital, but you are constantly thwarted, your exit blocked, forced to find an alternate route. Sometimes you’ll need to find a key to progress; other times you’ll need to catch sight of an air duct to crawl into. Since your character is deeply committed to investigative reporting, another goal is to document the hospital. You can look through your camcorder or not, but if you look through it, your character will make observations about things that he sees which you can read. It also adds a layer of fear to the experience because for some reason looking through a camera makes games scarier. I’m sure there is a good psychological reason for this, perhaps that if you see something on camera, you know it’s very real and right in front of you. But keeping the camera up serves another function: quick access to night vision. Much of the game is dark, and you’ll be using night vision frequently. Keep a constant supply of batteries because not being able to see in the dark will be your doom. I played on normal and never ran out of batteries though. In fact, I never dropped below like 6 (of 10 max) once I got that many. I spent most of the game with 8-10.
The end presents a nifty, if predictable, little plot twist that makes you feel even worse for your character. If you don’t feel bad for this character, you may lack empathy. I would not want to be him. There is a DLC called Whistleblower that is half as long as the main game...and upon trying to play it I apparently do not own it and it is $8.99. Mmm...mmmm..mmmmmmmm. Nah.
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dkirschner's Outlast (PC)
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Current Status: Finished playing
GameLog started on: Sunday 29 January, 2017
GameLog closed on: Tuesday 31 January, 2017 |
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This is the only GameLog for Outlast. |
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