Outlast: scary or not?

[SnakeTrousers]

I was kind of skeptical of Outlast from the first trailer. One interesting gimmick and no means of self-defense did little to excite me when the rest seemed so typical of everything that bores me about horror games. Cliche set-up, jump scares, over-the-top gore, shrieking musical stings. Bleh.

Yet, I somehow wound up owning it anyway, feeling I'd perhaps jumped to conclusions too quickly. It was cheap, so I checked it out to see if my initial suspicions would prove incorrect.

Nnnnnope. It was pretty much exactly as I'd predicted, the virtual equivalent of a haunted house ride thrown together by Micheal Bay. Having to run and hide from the bad guys rather than shoot them in the face does make things more tense and the threat more believable, but I don't feel a complete lack of weaponry excuses a complete lack of subtlety or originality. Besides, chase scenes kind of stop being thrilling and start becoming tedious after enough of them have gone by, particularly when you get stuck in one for five minutes, unsure of where to go.

So, outside of one or two admittedly effective moments, I didn't find Outlast all that scary. Since I seem to be in the minority on this, though, my question was: did you?

 

[Corven]

Nope, the games overuse of jump scares became quickly repetitive and boring, and so did most other sequences in the game, one that pointed out how scripted the entire thing felt was in the beginning of the game when you had to restart the power while avoiding the one dude patrolling the area around the breakers, it was easy to spot that the breakers themselves had a "dude will immediately come here if this is turned on" event attached to all of them.

It sucks that I didn't like the game as much as I had hoped I would especially after the disappointment that was the amnesia sequel.

 

[StriderShinryu]

As is the problem with most jump scare based horror, the fear pretty much runs out after 10 or 15 minutes. That said, Outlast does do a pretty good job of creating a scary environment and makes the smart step of using a fairly populated environment but not making everyone you see an enemy.

In short, there are definitely less scary horror games than Outlast, but there are also many scarier ones too.

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

The only way Outlast is scary is when you watch Kinetic play it, and even then HIS reaction is a better jump scare than any provided by the game.

 

[J Tyran]

For me personally? No, horror games or films simply do not scare me. There is a disconnect between simulated danger and real danger for me, which is odd because I do like adrenaline or exciting games but horror games dont scare me at all.

When it comes to games with horror elements like the F.E.A.R series I do kind of feel the oppression and tension but not fear, thats not to say I am fearless or anything like that. Real life things do scare me, but even then its more logic than phobia. A British house spider? Harmless and they don't bother me, put me in a room with a Brazilian wandering spider and f**k that I wouldn't take my eyes of it.

 

[II2]

Asking if something is scary is like asking if something is fun. It's a *really* subjective thing.

I got into it and was properly tense. Jerked a few times at the pop and shocks. The cliched writing let me down more than the game play, which I felt was rock solid perfect, if perhaps drawn a bit too far. I got it when it first landed and have done 3 playthroughs or so, always enjoying it. Ironically, Amnesia: Machine for Pigs arrived around the same time on steam, and I got that too... Playing both, I wished for a game with the visceral, mechanical refinement of Outlast and the more high-minded cerebral horror writing of A:MfP, instead of two separate games strong in the areas the other was not.

What I mean by all that is A:MfP, without getting into spoilers, was rich with allegory, literary allusions and alternate history that set up a complicated relationship with the player character and the world. Outlast, by contrast:an Ex Nazi Docotrs, MK ULTRA Mind Control, CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS pick-n-mix, along with a weird disconnect where your player character would write personal notes in a oddly cynical 'Stephen-King-Action-Author' tone that didn't seem to fit with his state of delirious panic.

---

If you're remotely interested in horror, it's a great game to check out. How you'll find it is, again, very personal. I found it effective, without affecting. A friend of mine couldn't even play it for more than 40 minutes - he used to work security shift on a 'high risk' mental health ward and found the excited agitation of the NPCs WAY too close to home. People differ.

 

[Ratties]

God am I sick of people bitching about jump scares. Really seems to be the death blow in this genre. Everything about the game was decent. Not the best survival horror game of all time, it is well made and fun to play. If you want to ***** about a game being repetitive, every single game you have ever play could be labeled as such. Always going to be repeating stuff in games, that's how it is.

 

[Z of the Na'vi]

God am I sick of people bitching about jump scares. Really seems to be the death blow in this genre. Everything about the game was decent. Not the best survival horror game of all time, it is well made and fun to play. If you want to ***** about a game being repetitive, every single game you have ever play could be labeled as such. Always going to be repeating stuff in games, that's how it is.

People are allowed to have their own opinion regarding certain types of scare tactics when it comes to these type of games, you know. There's really no need to call them out for doing so.

OT: I've never played the game but the first trailer did look pretty scary. I'm really not one to play those types of games though. I don't like being scared.

 

[Alarien]

For me, no. It was too predictable and too repetitive. It also left "creepy" behind when it dropped into the detention areas, which basically made the part of my brain that gives me the cold shivers shut off. That's the part that says "this place looks ok, but feels wrong somehow." For me, that's the best type of "scary" in a game, and Outlast tossed it out the window early on, in favor of a blatantly and aggressively dangerous atmosphere.

That's why I'm not a big fan of Outlast, Doom, Dead Space, etc as "scary." They may be fun or good games, but they stop being scary when the just just going "BOO" as loudly as possible. Amnesia: The Dark Descent and the abandoned hotel from Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines are good examples of what is, for me, scary.

 

[elvor0]

God am I sick of people bitching about jump scares. Really seems to be the death blow in this genre. Everything about the game was decent. Not the best survival horror game of all time, it is well made and fun to play. If you want to ***** about a game being repetitive, every single game you have ever play could be labeled as such. Always going to be repeating stuff in games, that's how it is.

Opinions, what's that? If it didn't scare them, it didn't scare them. And like a lot of other people, jump scares don't scare me. A few of em yeah, but overload on them just diminishes them to the point of annoyance and expecting them. For me, I'm not left /scared/ after a jump, just a little offset.

It's not like Amnesia where there's always a foreboding tension of dread, where I actually hid in a wardrobe for a good 10 minutes because I was too scared to come out. It's especially why I find it hilarious that doom 3 or Dead Space are considered "scary". Even the jump scares in that were pathetic, for Doom 3 is was the red lighting and pentagrams, which every time meant a monster was going to jump out, in which case I just trained my shotgun on the pentagram. Dead Space, it's the dead monsters jumping up or an air vent. Waaay too predictable. Dead Space wins out for a bit of tension, Doom 3 was pathetic, every "jump" was telegraphed by a good 15 seconds.

Granted I haven't played it yet, but the thread title is "Outlast, scary or not" to some people it /wasn't/ scary, question answered.

 

[lunavixen]

Had it not relied on jump scares, like so many horror games do, it could have been a fantastic horror game, as it is, it's lackluster. It has a few effective moments, but not enough, I think they could have implemented some form of melee combat (even if it was just with a bit of broken wood or pipe so that you had something to try and escape enemies with (when cornered) instead of just taking hits as it left very little room for error).

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Good grief people, there's nothing inherently wrong with "jump scares". It's not shorthand for low-brow horror, it's the very foundation of horror, both good and bad. It's one thing to use them and another to over-use them. The game looks pretty scary from a Let's Play perspective. Playing it first-hand, I dunno. Maybe it does lose some effect sooner or later. Still looks like a tense ride.

 

[veloper]

Outlast is one of the better horror games from the past couple years, despite the jump scares and the overused elements.
Amnesia 1 was a little better.

 

[SnakeTrousers]

Good grief people, there's nothing inherently wrong with "jump scares". It's not shorthand for low-brow horror, it's the very foundation of horror, both good and bad.

It is not the very foundation of horror, and while I agree with you that there's nothing inherently wrong with them as a concept, that doesn't change the fact that they tend to be overused by lazy writers who can't think of other ways to build tension.

 

[88chaz88]

Whole lotta e-peen flexing in this thread.

Outlast is fucking terrifying. If it doesn't scare you, no game will.

 

[GundamSentinel]

Personally I liked Outlast, but I wouldn't say it stands out as a scary game. It often made good use of its scares (both jump scares and otherwise), and the night vision was a great addition. But I felt the game tried too hard to be scary and became a bit too obvious about it. The moment you approach that gothic monstrosity of an asylum you know things are bad. Personally I prefer it if things are just that little bit off. That slight tingle in your spine which you can't explain directly. Mount Massive was such a blatantly 'scary' place it was almost ludicrous. Also, the ending was pretty awful.

The problem I usually have with playing horror games is that I can't take off my meta-glasses: I keep looking at them and seeing exactly what the game is trying to do with its design, sounds and scares and constantly realizing that makes them significantly less scary to me. In the end all that's left to scare me are the jump-scares and those are often telegraphed from miles away, in Outlast as well.

 

[SquidVicious]

It starts out pretty scary, however towards the final hour or so I got pretty use to the scares and it really didn't do anything for me on my second playthrough with the camera always on. I had a fun 6 hour experience though and I felt it was worth the $17 I paid for it.