Outlast review
When I stepped out of Miles Upshur’s car outside of Mount Massive Asylum I was looking down at my Dullshock 4 trying to figure out the controls I looked up at the building and saw a shadow of a person running past the window. I took a deep breath and continued walking towards the asylum. When I started to play Outlast I thought I’d run through it no problem. I had read that it was only a four to five hour trip through Mount Massive Asylum. But within ten minutes of slipping through one of the Asylums second story window, I realized I had underestimated Outlast and what developer Red Barrels had given us to play through. It’s a beautiful looking, jump out of your seat scary ride. But as much as Outlast gets right it does get some wrong. Such as, boring objectives, that only slows down the action. And a truly disappointing and counfusing third act and ending.
From the start Outlast is a very pretty looking game. Environments are rich and I found very well detailed. Character models on the other hand are very bland and by the first hour I thought I had seen all of them. One of the many things Outlast get right is its plot. You are Miles Upshur a reporter who gets a tip to check out Mount Massive Asylum. Believing it could possibly be the story of his career. But he soon learns of the horror inside Mount Massive. As the plot moves forward I became more and more interested in what was happing. Around three hours in I thought I had it figured out. But sadly the way it ended up going was more confusing and less interesting than what I had built up in my head.
In Outlast you don’t fight enemies. You don’t shoot at enemies; you don’t punch or kick them. You run and hide. This may not seem fun. But, it makes for a terrifying rush and makes the game that much scarier. Your only saving grace in Outlast comes in the form of a camcorder with night vision. Making things even more tense is the camcorder runs on batteries which you have to look carefully around for to replace the batteries when they go dead after around 3-5 minutes of using the night vision.
Outlast is a great, scary, and fun ride. Even though it does have it’s rough parts it’s overall a great game. Anyone with a PS4 should play it.
