Summary: Miles Upshur, an investigative journalist, goes to Mount Massive Asylum. A rundown abandoned insane asylum to uncover its secrets while avoiding insane inmates who are bent on killing you.
As always I may be spoiling out some aspect of the story and game, so please read at your own caution:
- Weapons of Choice
I want to start and state I understand that this is a run and hide game. I’m fully aware. That being said, WHO ENTERS A RUNDOWN, ABANDONED AND PROBABLY CONDEMNED INSANE ASYULM AT NIGHT IN A RAIN STORM WITH ONLY A CAMCORDER AND BATTERIES?!?!? I don’t think that anyone would in their right mind would do this. If this was me, I would probably go, if, I was armed up like John Matrix in the end of the 1985 Movie Commando.
But to Miles’ credit, he has guts to do go in armed with only a camcorder.
- The run and hide aspect was different.
I didn’t mind this aspect of the game. It’s a change from other horror games I’ve played in the past. This was done, alright. The only thing that I didn’t like is the limited environments that you can hide in and lack of tension. The few hideable areas I found were in a closet, under a bed or in darkened area. It wasn’t as tense as I thought it would be. In a similar game, Alien: Isolation for example. It had a limited hiding locations like Outlast, but the tension while hiding from your enemies was done well. The Alien, for example, would stalk the room looking for you and check some of the hiding environments in the surrounding area. Plus if you had the motion tracker up, it added so much more tension when you are hiding. Beeping frantically when the Alien was close to you and you are unable to see the Alien. In Outlast, you can be chased by an inmate. But when you evade and hide in a room from them, they just check one locker or under a bed, give up and move on. To Outlast’s credit, at least the inmates will break down a closed door while you hide. That did add some tension for me.
- This game reminded me of Amnesia: The Dark Decent.
I’m sure it was because of the run and hide type gameplay, but all of the environments are dark. There is hardly any light in the game at all except at the end. You are mostly in the basement and prison of the asylum. Even when you have some brief moments being outside you are in a rain and a lighting storm. It was hard to see sometimes in the game. The camera’s night vision helps a lot, but the battery does drain quickly if you forget to turn it off. You’re also running and hiding from inmates if they spot you. A lot of dark and dreary areas that gave a feel of dread in that game. At least you don’t lose any sanity in the dark like in Amnesia.
- Reloading your camera
The biggest problem I have with the game. You battery for night vision dies out over time using it. You can reload a battery. But you change out and lose the battery that is currently inserted. This can be a problem because you can change and lose a full battery. Sometimes I accidentally hit Y and lost a fully charged battery. These are hard to come by in the game as well. I lost five full batteries in a row by doing this and there is no way that I know of that can cancel this out. I haven’t played Outlast 2 yet and I hope that this was corrected.
- Worth playing
The game is worth giving a try. I got this game from the games with gold promotion. It’s a fairly short game with some replay for it. The visuals and little touches were nice, such as the camera lens breaking at one point of the game and seeing through the crack lens were recording. The main story had my attention even though it felt fairly common. I recommend not going for the collectables on the first run. I did and it ruined a lot of the experience. I still had a few jump scare moments but collectibles in a horror game are a gray area for me. They provide you with backstory to characters and a situation. But they require guides most of the time to find them all. Looking for them with a guide may spoil a jump scare moment for the player playing the first time. When you go for them for achievement purposes, I feel you will miss out on the whole story and not care for reading them. My recommendation is to play the game first and then use a guide the second time to get all of your collectables.
That is all that I have. Thank you for reading.
Tom Moscato's Blog 