Outlast Review (Spoiler free) and Gameplay Videos

I’m someone who’s fairly new to the horror genre when it comes to games, and being a huge fan of scary films – I was desperate to find a game that could capture the same experience. Most people would agree that 'Amnesia' is the go-to game for horror, so I was rather sceptical about the potential of Outlast. But every game deserves a chance, and Outlast does not disappoint.

The game opens with the main protagonist, who is a journalist investigating the strange going-ons of an asylum known as Mount Massive (yes I did giggle at the name). Even standing outside the asylum with the thunder in the background, I felt extremely tense and yet eager to see what horror awaited me inside.

Outlast incorporates the fatal-frame notion of using a camera to look through. While you don’t need it to see the ‘monster’, you will need it for its night vision feature. However, the more you use it, the quicker the battery will deplete, potentially leaving you stumbling around in the dark with god-knows-what chasing you. Batteries are fairly easy to find though, perhaps making them more abundant would help to create a greater sense of panic.

Much of the gameplay is focused around completing objectives while staying out of the way of the frenzied inhabitants of the asylum. Along the way you collect confidential documents, which provide a small insight as to why they are set on cutting you into pieces. Although the story itself is not much to write home about, and probably won't be the reason you keep coming back to Outlast.

Perhaps the scariest element of the game is the fact that you can’t actually fight back. Although there are a number of objects which could potentially be brandished as weapons, your character seems to have an innate fear of confrontation and much prefers to hide away in lockers (or under beds, in toilet stalls, etc) instead.

The closest you will get to a battle is flinging the mouse around wildly if someone grabs you, or slamming a door in their face. Wondering around with only your camera to protect you, is a truly terrifying experience (the bits of body parts scattered around don't help much either). Although this is not a new concept in horror games, it is definitely one that works.

Aside from getting dangerously close to horror clichés (crazy people in an asylum doesn’t scream originality) and an overuse of jumpscares, Outlast is definitely a strong contender in the horror genre market. The game itself is fairly short (although that depends on how much time you spend cowering in lockers), but overall it is definitely worth a play through. And if you are as much of a scaredy-cat as I am, you will be in for a frightening experience.

If you want to see more, then you should watch my Let's Play series - videos are below.

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Scrolls Draft Format: Judgement

Out on the test server and hopefully coming to the Beta server towards the end of the month, is the new scrolls draft format Judgement. For those not aware, a draft game is where you will build a deck from a restricted card pool, which is (to a degree) chosen by yourself, from a few options and a smaller deck size. In the Scrolls draft you will be presented with four Scrolls of which you can choose one.  You can see the next groups of Scrolls for you to pick from, so you can attempt to plan ahead.

The challenge of playing draft is trying to make a strong deck from a limited card pool and restricted choices. Often you will find cards that are sub par in the standard constructed format of a TCG, are suddenly very strong in a limited format such as draft. An example of this in scrolls would be Charge Coil, perhaps not the greatest scroll in constructed rank play, but in draft format if you get enough of them down you will dominate the field. Something to be noted is in this format, you can have more than three copies of any scroll in your deck. So if you are lucky enough to get the picks, it's possible to have more than three copies of Charge Coil in a minimum 30 card deck! A scary prospect indeed.

A nice addition to the Scrolls draft UI, is the stats which will help you round out your deck and make sure you have plenty of creatures for the resource (or resources) you wish to play. This feature greatly assists in the drafting process,  as by no means is drafting easy (as Rastien found out in his draft game against Blinky).

Here is a video which demonstrates how Judgment works:

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