Ok, rant time. I trudged through Outlast far enough to finish it the other night and I feel like I've taken up way too many issues with the game for me to enjoy it. I need a place to vent.
On Steam, the game's synopsis begins by saying, "Hell is an experiment you can't survive in Outlast." In this case, it's an experiment of head-sagging repetition and boredom. That's the only way I can describe it. There is no main appeal, no core mechanic, no real hook of this game that manages to remain interesting for more than an hour. To be more succinct - I believe they titled the game "Outlast" as a shorthand way of saying, "This game will outlast any real desire or curiosity you have to actually finish the damn thing."
It absolutely drags in the second half. The overarching objective of the game is to "Find the Exit". You slip into the role of an independent journalist who's bitten off more than he can chew, and now you need to backtrack and find your way out. Simple, no? Yeah... of course it's not. Soon, the game begins to persistently cocktease you and prevent you from actually exiting the asylum. Every time you think you're approaching the finish line, the game goes "NOPE", some scripted event happens, your path is diverted, and you are forced into another hour of mind-numbing gameplay and puzzles that are so egregiously thoughtless and uninspired that it's almost offensive.
In most other games, having extended playtime isn't a bad thing. But this game is artificially inflated as fuck. And that's saying a lot for an 8-hour game. (I used to value games based on how long they are, but nowadays I prefer quality over quantity. Outlast, unfortunately, favors quantity while being nearly devoid of quality, gameplay wise.) They could have condensed the game into four hours and made it more directionally coherent and satisfying; short and sweet. But they didn't.
It absolutely blows my mind that the game's designers could not think of any objectives more interesting than "Find the key", "Push these buttons", "Flip this lever", "Turn the two valves", "Ride the elevator", etc, etc. Come on, guys, you can do better than that! Make the game's objectives tie into the story! Make my actions more interesting, varied, and contextual! By the time I reached the third instance of the game asking me to "find the valves and turn them off", I groaned in frustration. I'm not exaggerating either - there were literally three different instances of me having to turn water valves in order to proceed. Not only were the game's objectives completely dull, they were recycled as well. It felt like I was part of the prison staff doing chores.
There is some credit due however: Technically, the game is incredibly polished and detailed. The game uses a 64-bit executable, which is a very intelligent, forward-thinking move for a PC game. The entirety of the game's content can be loaded into RAM this way, and thus there are no loading times to break immersion. Very smart. The graphics are excellent. The textures, geometry, lighting, and animations are all top-notch. The sound design is nailed with precision. The general atmosphere and environment around me were so well-constructed and convincing, that it was obviously created by some very talented people.
It's like they've created the shell for a good horror game, and then neglected to actually make a good game.
Such a shame too, because it starts out so promising. The beginning of the game sets the mood so well. It's dark, you pull into the driveway in your truck, the radio playing quietly, you step outside, there's this huge building looming before you, and you feel like you're in for something great. But it only goes downhill from there. Once you've played the first hour, you've seen 99% of what the game has to offer. It's nothing but hamfisted stealth gameplay, recycled puzzles, and generic enemies chasing after you for the rest of the game.
They could have at least tried throwing some different enemies at you. But my ideas for improvement are futile at this point. There's so many things they "could have" done to make the game more engaging. Coulda, shoulda, woulda. The grizzled-looking, deformed, hulking cadavers threatening you are scary the first time, but become trivial the next twelve times. Like the game says, "Did this guy not scare you the last three times? Too bad, here he is again!". One of the game's mini-bosses (for lack of a better term) makes an appearance on multiple occassions, and the first time you see him, you exclaim, "Holy shit, what the fuck is that?" and then the next three times you see him, you go "oh, look, it's the fat guy again. Great."
Soon after, you realize the enemy AI is ridiculously braindead, and they won't see you unless you're sprinting past them, or you're waving your hands in front of their face.
Then the game's entire illusion of threat collapses in on itself when you realize none of the enemies can even outrun you. Nothing can even match your pace. When I got frustrated trying to be sneaky, I decided it would be faster and less aggravating to simply run around in circles with enemies chasing me, all while trying to figure out whatever nonsense task the game wanted me to do next. If one of the enemies pokes you, no big deal; it takes multiple hits for you to die, and you have regenerative health. Suddenly the game isn't so scary. There was a point where I got so tired and frustrated that I simply began sprinting through entire levels. Finally, I put on some Weird Al Yankovic in the background to alleviate any more cheap jump scares the game would try to throw at me. (Outlast sure does love it's jump scares).
Overall I'm really disappointed. Red Barrels had the foundation for something great. They just failed to build upon it.
At least I can say I've beat it now. I would not recommend this unless you're a diehard horror fan who absolutely needs something new to play. Feels good to get that off my chest.
I just started playing the new Amnesia game, and despite not oozing with nitty-gritty run-down atmosphere like the asylum in Outlast, Amnesia still feels far more refreshing and creative. I really don't intend to start an Amnesia vs. Outlast argument here... believe me, I really wanted to like Outlast. But the more I played it, the more I hated it. Had to be said.