Outlast: Gott im Himmel! What a horror game!

Outlast originally looked like just another indie horror game in the vein of Amnesia: The Dark Descent, but Red Barrels managed to craft a dark gem of time at Mount Massive. It still has some indie horror trappings, but it overcomes those more skillfully than most of its kind.

I'm going to sort my critiques by category of "Positive"(Things that were good), "Mixed"(Things that could have been better) and "Negative"(Things that detracted from the game). Here goes.

Positives:

Outlast's atmosphere is impeccable. Every second you spend in the halls of Mount Massive, you're praying to god that you can leave as soon as possible in the best possible way. This is boosted even higher in the dark when your vision is on life support. The buckets of blood, disrepair, the inmates out for your head, and the classic insane asylum setting make Mount Massive very unnerving, and thankfully, it never let up throughout the game.

The presentation, 99% of the time, is very impressive for an indie game that came out in 2013. The visuals are fine, with some art direction flair to compensate; the 60 fps framerate never dips, and the game is largely free of bugs and glitches. Outlast takes a no-holds-barred approach to horror and has very good craftsmanship throughout the game. The blood comes in truckloads but never feels like too much, the previously mentioned atmosphere instills dread with ease, the chases are effortlessly tense and thrilling, and most of the jumpscares are well constructed and earned. The best part of the Outlast's presentation is the lighting, which couldn't be better. This is very important, given the gameplay.

The gameplay, given that it's an indie title in the vein of Amnesia, is the very simple run, hide, or die formula. The game even puts it in the intro screen. The thing that sets Outlast apart from others of its kind in terms of gameplay is the camera mechanic. This thing is how you view the halls of Mount Massive, giving the game a cool UI. The camera's night vision adds to the fright factor, gives a survival mechanic, and wouldn't work nearly as well if the lighting wasn't spot on. The batteries your camera needs come at a rate that requires disciplined use but never gets unfair. The camera is taken away and damaged at certain points to mix things up.

The pacing of the game is well done; nice and fast. It never feels like it drags, and it ends just when the horror start to wear off.

A surprising standout about Outlast is the music. Samuel Laflamme expertly uses instrumentation to compose a score that is not only eerie and terrifying but also elegant and tragically beautiful. No song in the game is a letdown or doesn't do its intended job(which is to make the player suffer, to quote Laflamme) well.

Mixed:

The enemies's AI works well enough to give thrilling chases most of the time; they can find you if you hide poorly, have good enough eyesight and hearing, and can catch you if you don't run. Chris Walker, the stalker enemy of the game, is horrifying, mostly down to his great programming, and makes for a good cat to Miles Upshur's(that's you) mouse. Their kills are brutal, ranging from stabs, beatings, and throat slits to Chris Walker tearing your head off with his bare hands, and Red Barrels doesn't skimp on the blood. However, there are easy ways to juke them. If you crawl through a vent, squeeze through a wall or gap, or jump to a ledge, they will never get to you if there's no alternate route. As fearsome as he is, Chris Walker loses some fear factor when he's consistently defeated by an air duct (oops, that's a spoiler.) Thankfully, this doesn't happen too often. There is also crouching in a room with the lights off, but that isn't reliable enough to be a juke.

Miles has infinite stamina and automatic health regeneration. This can take some edge off the chases, especially ones with Chris Walker, but your nerves will often be too frazzled to take advantage of this.

Mount Massive Asylum is a rather standard location for a horror game; it is an insane asylum, after all, but the things happening here, the colorful and crazy inmates, and the sheer amount of detail in the design help make it stand out. It still has a few trappings that typical game asylums fall into, though, like being grabbed through the bars and having little to no security(although there is a good story reason for that). There are some sections that have you follow blood, which, well, there is a worse color to do that kind of thing with, I guess.

The story is simple but unique for this kind of game and even dabbles in a little bit of historical fiction, ala Call of Duty Black Ops with Nazi Doctors and MKUltra(which, funnily enough, Black Ops uses too.) The Murkoff corporation that runs the asylum is easily one of the least ethical companies in all of fiction, and that's before the other games make them even worse. Trying to expose their dream therapy experiments and finding out what it's done to people while maintaining Miles's sanity is fun enough and occasionally sad. Unfortunately, a fair amount of the story is told via exposition, and the MKUltra stuff is relegated to the trailers or collectible files throughout the asylum. Thankfully, The Wallrider or Billy Hope makes some of this more stomachable, but it's still exposition. The ending, meanwhile, makes most of these drawbacks worth it. It will haunt you for a couple of days.

The characters you meet and run from are crazy in their own special way. Whether it be Chris Walker's monosyllabic(and surprisingly sympathetic) brute act, Dr Trager's dark comedy, Father Martin's faith, or The Wallrider's unique concept, the inmates here are far more memorable than your average psycho. Miles is a silent protagonist, and Billy Hope is offscreen most of the game, which makes them rather boring. A lot of the characters' lore is locked behind collectibles, and they aren't told anywhere else. Miles's notes and Billy's therapy notes help a little, but not enough. Thankfully, the bold outweighs the bland in this game.

Negative:

The graphics may all be good, but the character models do not hold up. They are blurry and weirdly rendered and often inspire laughter more than fear, especially up close. The character designs are fine, but the rendering does not do them justice.

Score: 8.7 out of 10

Outlast is a modern horror gem that, despite a few visual hiccups and indie horror story trappings, manages to be engaging, fun, and terrifying throughout. Turn the lights off for this one.