Outlast Is Terrible

Right, I've had some time to gather my thoughts and now I'm going to write a little bit about why Outlast is so fucking awful.

I'm going to split this piece into 2 parts.  The first being why it's terrible as a game and the second being why it's a terrible story.

The Game

I remember when I saw the first trailers for Outlast, it originally looked like it was going to be some kind of Mirrors Edge but with a horror setting, which sounded radical.  When I played the game I was a little disappointed that the final product was a slow, plodding, shit excuse of a survival horror game with a crappy chase mechanic

Granted you can sprint and vault over things every now and again but this isn't used well enough for it to be at all enjoyable. Ideally, the enemies should have ALWAYS been coming at you and you'd have to parkour through the facility to survive but instead we got a bunch of uninteresting hallways and a few obstacle courses for you to parkour through when they decide it's time for a chase sequence.

Speaking of corridors, the game is FAR too linear.  There is barely anything to explore and the designated hiding rooms are far too obvious.  Also there are plenty of places to hide from enemies but not enough enemies to make the majority of them worth using.  Most of the crazies in the asylum are non combative and once you realise this it kind of kills any tension because you know that chances are they are just going to sit there and spout nonsense.

The game is also formulaic and predictable which thus makes it extremely boring.  You can basically describe Outlast as follows

1) Go through some corridors
2) Come to a thing that needs to be activated but it's broken
3) There will be 2 valves/levers/buttons, one down a left path, one down a right path.
4) Hit these buttons while avoiding ONE enemy
5) Go To 1

The game also has a habit of treating you like an idiot to the point where it becomes annoying.  For example, there was a part where I came to a broken generator control panel.  The panel read something like "Pressure valve 1 and 2 non operational" and as soon as I approached it a big fat yellow message popped up saying "FIX THE PRESSURE VAVLES".  No fucking shit game, thanks for your obvious hint.

The last thing I have to moan about with the game itself is the control, it's garbage.  The character moves far too slow at walking speed so there is no need to not have your pinky locked down on the run button.  There is absolutely no need to never have the camera readied since it doesn't limit your view and you need it half the time to see in the dark. Finally, jumping is bollocks because the character jumps like he has ankle weights on and the auto grabbing of ledges sometimes doesn't work because of reasons.

The Story

The story to Outlast is one of the stupidest things in gaming history.  However I did take long breaks between each session so if I'm wrong about any of the points I'm about to make regarding the plot, please leave a comment and tell me how I'm wrong.  I'm willing to admit I forgot/misunderstood some things if you can give me a good reason.  It's still shit though.

I'm going to take a few characters from the plot and explain why they are dumb.  Doing this should cover all the major problems I have with the story.

Also Spoilers

1) The Wistleblower

The Whistleblower is the character we never see or really hear from.  The only thing we know or at least the only thing I remember is that he is the guy who tipped off the main character about what was going down at Mount Massive Asylum.  But think about all the things we see inside Mount Massive over the course of the game.

1) We see and hear about lots of other freelance journalists that entered the asylum and were killed by the inhabitants
2) One of the first encounters in the asylum is with a dead SWAT team.  The guy on the pike telling you to flee with his last breath
3) This means that this Whistleblower guy possibly tipped off the SWAT team, and then after they failed sent in ONE freelance journo with a camera and somehow hoped he would do better.

A fucking SWAT TEAM was taken out by probably one man with no weapons or intelligence (Chris Walker).  That means that the Whistleblower is a bit of a fucking moron.  But whatever, more stupid shit happens inside the asylum.

2) Chris Walker

His very existence doesn't make any fucking sense.  He is a big hulking tosser with no sense of tactics or stealth and is completely unarmed, yet somehow manages to take out a bunch of dudes with fucking rifles on his own and comes out of the whole ordeal completely unscathed. 

But let us assume that he did/could do that.  It's assumed by some people that the reason Chris Walker is trying to kill you is because he's trying to stop a new host for the Walrider.  This doesn't make any sense because how would he know the Walrider could do that?  The doctor in the wheelchair seemed pretty surprised when he discovered that it had taken over the protagonists body so HOW THE FUCK would a big hulking moron like Chris know that?!

Also if he is trying to stop a new host for the Walrider, why aren't all the nutters who are on the side of that priest guy trying to kill him?  The whole reason for the priest being there is to worship the Walrider, so why would he not be trying to take down an enemy of his faith?  I know he's a big strong guy but the priest had a fucking legion of nutters with shivs at his disposal, I'm sure they could have taken him down, he's not invincible.

3) The Walrider and Billy Hope

I'm going to bullet point these ones because this side of the story is so stupid it makes my head spin

- The Walrider is a swarm of NANOMACHINES controlled by some dudes fucking lucid dreams.  This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

-If they are controlled by Billy, how the fuck do they continue to function AFTER the protagonist killed Billy

-If the Walrider can function without Billy, why does it need to "infect" or "possess" the protagonist?  It could have just killed him

-But let's assume it needs a host and the last point was done as a last ditch effort at self preservation while Billy was dying.  The protagonist is gunned down by a team of dudes right at the end so surely it would shut down because A) The new host is fucking dead and B) I'm going to assume that the protagonist can't lucid dream

-Finally, if it is fucking nanomachines (a thing created by SCIENCE!) why does it need a traumatised host?  Couldn't they just work on the nanites to make them less awkward to fucking use.

So that's it, Outlast is a shit game.  I'll be doing another post soon about survival horror at large so watch this space.