Ah, video games. They refuse to go away, and I refuse to stop playing them, so here I am writing about video games! Once again!

So, Outlast. As the "free" PlayStation 4 game of the month, I played it. I'm actually surprised by how I feel about this game, which is to say that I wound up kind of liking it. See, last year, when the game came out on PC, I ended up watching Patrick Klepek play, I think almost all of this game in his Spookin' videos. My impression from watching that stuff was that it seemed like a bad stealth game. And I still think it's a bad stealth game, but I still kind of liked it.

There's basically two different types of "game play" in Outlast. There's the parts I like, which involve just walking around through spooky areas. I think those are terrific for the atmosphere, the lighting, etc. I mean, the insane asylum in this game is absolutely filthy and disgusting. It's gross, but in a way that I totally dug. If this was a puzzle-solving adventure type game, I would have really loved exploring this asylum, and trying to look into every last horrific nook and cranny.

But the problem is that a lot of it is a bad stealth game. Far too much of the game is about sneaking past an enemy (or a couple enemies) to push buttons, find things, or whatever. Now, I like stealth games. I LOVE stealth games. If you follow me on Twitter, you're well acquainted with my Metal Gear Addiction. But I have two problems with the stealth in Outlast. The first is that the AI isn't great. I'm not going to sit here and say that the AI in every stealth game I love is great (cough, Deus Ex Human Revolution, cough), but bad AI doesn't help.

The bigger problem, is that there's no combat. I get that's the point. I get that this is supposed to be a "scary" game that forces you to run from enemies instead of fighting them. I didn't like that. I also don't think there's a logical reason as to why you can't fight back. There's no reason why the dude you play as can't pick up a thing and fight back. There's no reason why he can't even punch, or kick enemies to at least stun them. Again, I know the real reason is game design, but it would have been nice if it made more sense within the game itself.

Conversely, I did like how the game does a great job of making it hard to know where the enemies are at any given time. Even with headphones on (because I don't have any sort of surround sound speakers for my TV), it was tough to tell where the enemies were. The headphones helped, don't get me wrong (and I highly recommend using headphones when playing the game, especially with that handy headphone hole in the DualShock 4), but between the music (which I like), and the main character breathing, it made it hard to even hear what direction enemies were coming from.

I know that may sound counter productive, but I feel like modern stealth games go just a tad too far in the direction of giving you too much information at any given time. When I played Splinter Cell Blacklist last year, I intentionally never turned on the mini-map because I thought that would make the game too easy. Now I've gotten off topic though.

Anyway, I'm not really very good at playing stealth games in the first person. Now, I know I just said that I liked how I liked the small amount of information Outlast gives you, but I don't like what happens when that lack of information leads to being found. Again, that lack of combat hurts the game for me. The only option is to either give up and die, or run. And if you run, all you can really do is just hope that you break line of sight, and then find something to hide in. One of my favorite "new" mechanics in modern stealth games is the ability to knock a dude out via melee before he can raise the alert.

But then again, there's no alerts in Outlast because the game doesn't need them, because you can't take the enemies out in the first place. I think the part where this whole endeavor really falls apart for me is that while you can technically save anywhere, and any time in Outlast, it only actually saves your last checkpoint. I'm not saying that every stealth game should let you save anywhere (MGS games and Blacklist don't), but I think it would have made this game better. There were a couple parts where I got stuck because I kept dying, and that wasn't fun. Sure, I suppose I could have just used more skill, but at that point I was trying to brute force my way through the game because I wanted to get to the next non-stealth part.

So there's my mostly-rambling thoughts on why I don't like that part of the game. But that atmosphere! Not many games use darkness as well as this game does. It has very impressive lighting, but even more impressive darking. Especially with the game's dependence on night vision. While I don't think the battery system in the game is realistic at all, I do think that forcing most of the game to be played through a crappy camera with a crappy night vision mode is cool. Especially when the goofy light on the controller changes color when you turn the night vision on. Yeah, I liked it when the light turns from white to green, and it even flashes a little when the camera's battery gets low.

I feel obligated to point out (though not sure why) that I don't like found footage movies. The only one I've seen is Cloverfield, and I think that Cloverfield is a TERRIBLE movie. But as a game? I think the concept works here. I also think that a sequel, or perhaps a similar game in the hands of a different studio could make it work even better.

I think that's everything I have to say about Outlast. Well, I should say I didn't find it scary. I knew I wouldn't fictional stuff doesn't scare me. I'll be honest, this is the first game since that part with the dogs jumping through the windows in Resident Evil 1 to make me jump a little, but that's not a scare. That's reflexes. Doesn't count.

I really love being able to take screenshots in PS4 games. So dumb, yet useful!

What else is going on? Well, I've been playing Metro Last Light, but I haven't finished that yet, so I'll write about that later. Still playing Spelunky, but I haven't beaten that either, and I already wrote about it. Uh... Working on Space Cops 5000, that's getting close to done. Feel free to tweet hashtags like #SpaceCops5000 and #SC5K all the time, constantly.

Oh, METAL GEAR! I knew there was something I wanted to talk about. Yeah, I saw that Ground Zeroes is two hours long. Now, when I first saw that, I was crestfallen. I had somehow managed to convince myself that Kojima was hiding something from us, that there was more to that than just the Cuban prison camp. But it seems like there isn't. But let me be clear, I have every intention of playing this game. I can't not play this game. Why?

It's because Metal Gear means so much to me. Twin Snakes shaped a lot of what I liked back in my early teen years. Yeah yeah, they changed it from the original, shut up. I was 8 when MGS1 came out on on the PS1. I was 11 when MGS2 came out on the PS2. But 14 year old me couldn't get enough of Twin Snakes in 2004. I love spy/espionage stuff, because of that game. Because it was the right game at the right time in my life. And then I kept playing the games, and only fell more in love with the series (well, more so with MGS3, because as much as I like the story in MGS2, I think MGS2 is a bad video game).

These games have been an important part of my life. They helped me get through some tough periods in my life. They helped form a lot of what I like about a lot of other different things. I wouldn't be a stealth game junkie without these games. I wouldn't be into that aforementioned espionage stuff. And, obviously, I wouldn't be into the story of these games.

So when I look at Ground Zeroes, based on what I've read, heard, and seen, I see something that is easily worth my money. It's where I've wanted stealth games to go for years. I would spend huge amounts of times in MGS3 scoping out areas with binoculars while meticulously figuring out how I would work through the area. In retrospect, the areas in MGS3 were pretty small. But this prison camp in Ground Zeroes is HUGE compared to that stuff, never mind all the changes to the core mechanics of controlling Big Boss as he sneaks about.

I also see the next chapter in a story that I care about. I story that is incredibly well produced, well voiced, and often ridiculous in ways that I adore. So is all of that worth my money? Yes, of course it is. Sure, I might get through that main story once in two hours, but then there's the side missions. Then there's the part where I played MGS4 14 times and will probably play this one even more. I have a lot of free time. Part of that is that I'm a college graduate with a poorly thought out degree, and part of that is my on-going health issues (which seem to be going well), but like I said, I have a lot of free time.

Conversely, I don't have lots of free money. Even with health insurance, there's still health related bills to pay. I may be only paying part of that $1850 bill for one MRI, but I'm still paying part of that. I may not be paying $800 for a prescription, but $25 for a month of pills is still $25 (yes, apparently they cost $800 without insurance). And when I'm totally dependent on my dad, who I know would complain if I paid $40 for a game I beat in 2 hours, well, that is an issue.

Eh, whatever. It's $40, maybe $30 if I'm feeling "frugal." It's not going to kill me. Probably. Hopefully. If only my literary career would be more than two people on Twitter buying my book a year because I pestered them. Then I wouldn't be spending too much time worrying about explaining to my dad why I paid $30 or $40 for a two hour game because I feel bad using his money when I don't contribute at all because I made bad decisions in college and then happened to have bad genes that led to Crohn's disease.

So that's my life! Well, you could also throw in a bunch of other stuff that I worry about/can't get off my mind, but I shan't be writing about that here. I certainly could, but I just get angry at myself for even thinking about that stuff, so I won't be sharing it. You can look forward to a blog in the "near" future about Metro Last Light, and maybe even Remember Me, assuming I remember to play that after it becomes free on PlayStation Plus.

Sometimes I feel like I'm just banging my head against a wall. Not literally, I don't get headaches very often. Figuratively. I also feel like this blog is a rambling mess, but I think I usually have that feeling. I know my life feels like a rambling mess, but enough about that.