Three years ago it was the The Dark Descent that scared the crap out of everyone from here to YouTube. Now Red Barrels thought it was time for some more pants crapping and changed the spooky old castle for an dark ominous asylum and the Lovecraft monsters for crazed, mutated inmates.
The hero this time is a journalist named Miles - a guy that apparently has some problems with his breathing, but on the upside is very tolerant to physical pain. Because over the course of about 7-10 hours of gameplay there's gonna be some heavy scares, Miles gonna get thrown around and get maimed pretty bad. But you just have to be a man about it and carry on.
Like Amnesia this game is about true survival horror. You cannot fight back at enemies - your only options is either to run or hide. More than once you will find yourself chrouching in a dark corner, praying that one of the bad ones not will notice you. Everytime that there's an "encounter" on the way Miles breathing will get heavier and more scared. At times it is actually really annoying and you really wonder how the monsters can fail not to hear Miles's heavy panting.
As said, you cannot carry any weapons - actually there is no inventory at all. All you have is an camcorder to record everything in your surroundings. And you have to be on the lookout for batteries (that conveniently is placed all around the place) - because your only light source in the darkness is the lamp on your video camera. And the batteries drains it FAST. Another thing to be on the lookout for is journals wich provides clues about whats been going on at the asylum. They provide with rather interesting and sometimes useful info, but honestly must serves as a breathing space between all the games scares.
Outlast also, at times, features dumbed down puzzles to progress in the story. Every single time that means that you will have to find X amounts of valves and run/hide from the crazy ass enemy. The developers really could have done with a little bit of more imagination there. Really, the core of the game is just to scare you as much as possible an not much more. Maybe one should not analyze such trivial stuff as unimaginable puzzles in a game that builds on challenging the player to outlast his fear just playing the game. But at times, at least I, get fed up with all the constant running from enemies the game forces upon you. Please a little more variety next time around, eh?!
Still I will play through this seven more times and still get more scared the 7th time than my first time with any of that overhyped "Slender" crap. This is real horror gaming and relies more on creepy atmosphere than just pity jumpscares. Outstanding sound effects and a Classic horror music score also add to the fact that this indeed are the scariest game since The Dark Descent.
Outlast is not something for the faint of heart, but people into the horror genre will not want to pass this one up.