On top of that, the guy in Outlast is also trapped inside the asylum. If a crazy drunk bum attacks you on the street, are you going to play fisticuffs with him or would you run? Watch some videos of guys on PCP and tell me if you would fight those guys. In Outlast you are mostly defenseless due to the fact that you are thrown into a situation of high stress (and shock, as you are injured quite a lot), where all of your enemies are unpredictable. Scarcity is a good way to boost stress (and thus fear) in these kind of games. There it felt mostly irritating, as it did not coincide with my expectations: I shoot them with my gun, they seem to be hurt by it, they flee, yet can not be killed. They would then go away for a bit, because you could not kill them. In Silent Hill 4 you also had a gun and could shoot ghosts. The first one really got to me, because whenever I would run out of ammo, I knew I was going to have to brawl with the monsters. Outlast does some of these things a bit better, but Outlast has some gimmicks of its own, some good, some bad.Īs to the question of allowing guns in a horror game: The more guns you get in Dead Space, the less frightening it gets. But it's also a clear indication as to what is coming. This is so that you can hide easily, of course. Whenever the game gives you more space, you are likely to get a monster encounter. While this means that you're less likely to get lost, it also means that the game is very linear. Several reviews have mentioned this as well: The game seems to be one long corridor.
Even when passing through the same area, you can not go back the way you passed through the area before (such as the gated passageways when you go outside the first time). This breaks suspension of disbelief for me. While I get that you need to make the space visually interesting, it does not make sense to have so many locked doors. In the beginning they do so with the weird locks, later on the doors just don't open. Placing the pig masks on spots you just passed really messes with your head.Įverywhere you're not supposed to go has been locked. I have yet to see them have the lights flicker and then have nothing happen though (as with Pavlov). However, as they never tell the player what the flickering means, it could also trigger a response of fear, just by flickering the lights. This is a double edged sword, as it warns the player, so the scare itself is not as harsh. They use a Pavlov response with the lights: They flicker whenever there is danger coming up. Some things I have noticed so far, watching Let's Play videos: I was hoping that this would dig in a bit more on the actual game design choices, but the article doesn't really.
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