In Outlast, you are investigative journalist Miles Upshur. You've decided to act on an anonymous tip, and so you set off to explore Mount Massive Asylum, an old and decrepit building that has recently been re-opened by the Murkoff Corporation. The nightmares and horrors that lie in wait are beyond anything that you can imagine, and your only possible way out is through hordes of deranged mental patients who've fallen victim to hellish experiments and medical torture. Armed with only a camcorder that has night vision capabilities, you must survive.
Set in a first-person point of view, Outlast is very much like a playable "found footage" horror movie; most of your time will be spent looking through your trusty camcorder, which will help you navigate immensely dark areas. Crazed lunatics and mental patients litter the tight corridors and open expanses of the game, most of which have some sort of deformity; be it mutilated flesh, or stumps where a limb should be. Many are harmless, and will chatter nonsensically, while others are out for blood... your blood. There are a small handful of primary bad guys that you will repeatedly encounter, all of whom are utterly gruesome and terrifying in their own way. You're no fighter, so you must run, hide, and outsmart your foes in order to navigate beyond them.
Much of the interaction between you and the enemies in the game consists of a mixture of chase and stealth sequences. An enemy will burst in out of nowhere, and it's up to you to find the nearest place to duck into; a locker, under a bed, behind a shelf. Sometimes the only thing that you can do is keep running. While these intense moments will make your heart palpitate, and the hair on the back of your neck stand up, near the end of the game it really gets both redundant and expected. Found a key? Well, I guess I'll go hide in this conveniently placed locker because Mr. Huge Pecks is going to come stomping down the hallway any second now! This is really the only downfall of Outlast, and honestly with the deep atmosphere and immersive graphic quality of the game itself, it hardly takes away from the scare factor that the title has. Not to mention, each of these foes has a lavish background to indulge in if you take care to read the collectible documents and notes.
While exploring the gore-soaked, entrail-laden rooms, hallways, and basements of Mount Massive Asylum, you will come across various documents and camcorder notes (if you have your camcorder on during certain events) that will give a large insight into the storyline of Outlast. It seems that the facility that you're exploring has been used for religious surgeries and scientific experiments that have turned many patients into unholy abominations. Many of the ill have been subjected to deranged forms of hypnosis, which has caused their mental state to deteriorate rapidly. Even the doctors have gone rabidly insane. It would be a travesty to suggest that this title relies on jump scares, but the ones that are placed sparsely throughout the gameplay are completely unexpected and scream inducing.
The biggest majority of Outlast centers around navigating from one area to the next, although the game never feels like a walking or key-finding simulator. There are a few puzzles to solve, which usually involve turning a couple of things on or grabbing a couple of items to help you progress; typically while avoiding an enemy that's filled with bloodlust. While this may sound tried, true, and typical for so many horror games, Outlast just does it the way it should be done. This title really brings out all of the stops with AAA quality graphics, detailed atmospheric lighting, memorable characters, constant environment and AI interaction, an extraordinarily suspenseful soundtrack, excellent enemy AI, and some of the most dense atmosphere of any horror game that I've ever experienced; and trust me, I've played nearly every horror game that there is.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Outlast is one of the greatest survival horror games since Silent Hill 2 and Resident Evil 4. I would go as far to say that as of this moment in time, it is the best modern horror survival title. No, you don't fight. No, you don't have a gun. You're a regular journalist, and you must use your wits to survive truly insane, deadly enemies. If you're like me, and you love games that are dripping from every corner with blood and gore, boast noteworthy bad guys, have a captivating storyline, and pull you in with an impenetrable atmosphere, then Outlast is the horror game for you. Also consider picking up the Whistleblower DLC, which is a phenomenal prequel addition to the main game.
Rating: 5.0/5.0 - An astonishing achievement, this game must be played.The Horror Network
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WHISTLEBLOWER DLC*Note: This review has been written assuming that you have completed the main campaign in Outlast. There may be spoilers for the main game ahead. Read at your own discretion. There are no spoilers for the DLC.In the Whistleblower DLC, you will play as Waylon Park, the software engineer that authored the first document that you stumble upon in Outlast. This added content is a prequel that begins prior to the events in the base game, and then stretches throughout; eventually overlapping with the time period where you killed the abominable Dr. Trager. Set out to expose the Murkoff Corporation for what they really are, a sick and deranged business ensemble, we find out that Waylon was the one who sent the anonymous tip to Miles.
Caught on his actions just moments after hitting the send button, Waylon is forced into Murkoff's grotesque hypnotherapy program as a punishment for his misdeed of trying to expose the Corporation for their true intentions. It is now hereby your ultimate objective to escape Mount Massive Asylum alive, and to see your wife Lisa again. While you will traverse many of the same areas that Miles did, there are also new slaughter chambers for the exploring. Of course, along with fresh places come the new, absurd faces of evil and insanity that you must survive encountering. If you thought the villains in Outlast's main campaign were deranged, you really haven't seen anything yet.
An insatiable cannibal and a man hellbent on making you his forced gender reassigned queen are your primary adversaries, as well as an old favorite returns to haunt your nightmares. As you're already familiar with the gameplay from the base game, I won't go in to as much detail here; it's more of the same stealth and chase sequences, with more of a focus on being chased. What really makes the Whistleblower DLC stand out though, is the way that Red Barrel pushed the envelope even further with not only how much nudity that you see (including your own in-game genitals), but how over-the-top crazy these bad guys are. Not to mention the gratifyingly lavish amounts of blood. In the primary campaign, the only foe that you really got up close and personal with was Dr. Trager, but the two new baddies make him seem like he was completely normal; you really become intimate with both of them.
Of course, there are new notes and documents to collect here; most of the documents will explain your new 'friends' to you, while the notes are your lovelorn thoughts to Lisa, your wife. They are still very much worth collecting and reading, as they cause you to get a deeper idea of the crazies that are after you, and the horrors that the Murkoff Corporation have put them through, as well as the notes help you to get more emotionally attached to Waylon. Even though you never overlap directly with Miles, it eventually seems like you're always just a few steps behind him.
Whereas Outlast itself lasts between 5-6 hours, the Whistleblower DLC clocks in between 2-3. For the asking price of $9.99 CAD, that isn't bad considering the blood-soaked amount of content that you end up getting. If this is a taste of what is to come with Outlast 2, then I cannot wait to see how Red Barrel blaze the trail of the survival horror genre. This DLC is worth it to experience the frighteningly insane enemies alone, much less the massive, extra amounts of blood and gore that have been included. I would go as far to say that this DLC is scarier than the main campaign. This, my readers, is DLC done right, and it's an absolute must buy.
Rating: 5.0/5.0 - An astonishing achievement, this game must be played.The Horror Network
Steam Group:
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/thehorrornetworkSteam Curator:
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/thehorrornetwork#curation 5.0