Outlast

[Damascus Rose]

Then they don't disappear.

Do enemies in real life disappear?

I always ran past them when I could so that I could get through it faster, and because hiding is boring and didn't seem to accomplish anything for me.

Which tells me you weren't even close to being immersed in the game. Your fault or the game's? Who knows, but I was. Thoughts like this didn't even cross my mind.

I could address a few of your other points but there is just too much. Basically you disagree with almost everything I say and it's exhausting to try to formulate such a huge argument in a coherent way. Not that it would really accomplish anything. It doesn't seem like you guys understand me and it doesn't seem like I understand you at all.

No in real life they don't, it's just I always found myself hiding from these monsters just to leave the room and have them be right in my face again so it was pointless.

And I was trying to be immersed, I did feel immersed in the game very much. It's just every time I turn a corner, there's a monster in my face that's chasing me down and it gets very exhausting.This is an exaggeration of course but you know what I mean, there were a whole lot of enemies. Even after the first one, I died a few times while trying to turn on the electricity and this is very frustrating. At first it was frightening, then after dying and having to do everything again he's just annoying. Are you saying that after every encounter you felt the same fear, and it never got old? Even at the ending?

This game just didn't do it for me. It had potential to be very scary but the design really ruined it in my opinion. I am trying to rethink my opinion of it, trying to understand better why I disliked it because you enjoyed it so much, but I can't come up with any result other than what I've stated previously :/ I would describe this game's genre as frustration-horror.

[Bridge]

Are you saying that after every encounter you felt the same fear, and it never got old? Even at the ending?

No, it got old, but never exasperating in my opinion. By the time it got old the game was almost over so it wasn't really a problem for me. Even so, the mere fact that it got old didn't do anything to mitigate the scariness for me. It made me slightly annoyed, sure, but I didn't react as strongly as you did. It definitely could have done with less generic encounters and more special moments like the mad doctor, the Call of Cthulhu chase that precedes it, the brothers and all of the Chris Walker scenes (had they made them a little more interesting). Even so, I just love the art design and audio. Rather than make me depressed by all its flaws it makes me optimistic that the studio will go on to make better games. Even though a lot of supposed industry legends worked on it it's very much an indie game. If they got better writers and worked on creating a more unique gameplay experience they could make some seriously great games. They obviously are very sensitive to aesthetics which are lacking in many games. Who knows. To reuse an expression I just think that it's greater than the sum of its parts.

[Damascus Rose]

I am excited to see what the studio can do if they make a different game. The game had good aspects and the studio has potential in my eyes, if they learn from the criticism and change up a lot. I will be waiting for their next game

[Rya.Reisender]

I'm disappointed that this game has no DRM-free version.

[Kreekakon]

I'm disappointed that this game has no DRM-free version.

We live in an age where DRM-free versions of games are something to be cherished when they come along.

[Zgroktar]

Outlast really did have few tense and terrifying scenes. My personal highlight is the sewer section, when you are chest deep in the murky waters, and you don't see a darn thing in front of you, even with the night vision mode on, and of course something is stalking you in there. I was so immersed that I even spent almost ten minutes just standing in the corner and just listening, waiting.
Another great part when you find yourself outside again, and it is pitch black with occasional lightning bolt shining the way, I felt pretty much the same as in the sewers, these are the moments the game really shines.
However I really disliked that they used the same bloody enemy for each of these sections, that brute, although intimidating at first, really started to annoy me at that point.

[TheWalshinator]

I'm disappointed that this game has no DRM-free version.

Mmhmm

[Alex Ros]

Outlast Whistleblower is definitely a level up in terms of the main character development. Protagonist is not just a flat blank person that simply wants to live and nothing more (basically main Outlast campaign protagonist was not a character at all). Vice versa as the Whistleblower story develops protagonist evokes sympathy more and more with every hint on his life. That's nice I'd say, it raises the level of immersion.

As for gameplay it's quite boring and repetitive. Mostly because it copies main Outlast campaign gameplay and adds nothing new, nothing new at all which is kinda strange.

Level design (visually) and sound design are both top notch. Levels are a bit more frustrating and labyrinthine and that's annoying when you have to sneak by some enemy but it's damn too unclear where to go and you just circling around and dying over and over again. Also there is too much of blood everywhere, it simply becomes somewhat decorative not even freaky. I mean there's even more of blood in comparison with the main Outlast campaign. Anyway visually Whistleblower is a pleasure. If all of the levels were completely empty it would be still a pleasure to have a big long walkaround.

[Googolplex]

I'm now playing Outlast after finishing Bioshock Infinite (very good story for a shooter).

Outlast is extremely disturbing, but not better than Amnesia. They are completely different.

However it scares the shit out of me.

[Kreekakon]

Ok so I just played the Outlast DLC myself, and I'll share some of my thoughts on it!

In this DLC you play as Waylon Park who is the employee who leaked the info to Miles from the original game. He is a better character than Miles in the fact that he simply HAS a character. In seriousness, it's not a particularly engaging, or compelling one, but it's still nice to have some story to your character to give that extra bit of oomfpt to making the game as a whole engaging.

The DLC is mainly split into two "sections" which each have their own "villain", let's just call it that.

The first half is in my opinion extremely meh. Mostly it is, because it is constantly throwing stuff at you, and does not work to get its atmosphere up at all. Also, the main gimmick of the villain didn't do too much for me personally either. In this area I mainly found myself mildly bored while going through the levels, and not really caring about anything. I was not immersed in the slightest in this part. This can very much be personal preference though.

The second half however...ohohoho the second half in my opinion reverses all the problems the first half had around. It builds atmosphere, hypes up the big bad with conversations beforehand, and his entrance is just bone-chilling. Also his main "gimmick", and speech patterns were enough to raise hairs on the back of my neck. His part was easily the most scared I had ever been in Outlast.

I only hope that he did not rely so much on gorey sections to try, and get his "horror" across. There is a TON of gore in this DLC to the point that I had no doubts not calling this "decoration", and just "torture porn" in some areas. It's nice effective decoration in most areas, but in a couple it actually takes away from the scare factor of the game.

Another big issue I had with the game is the level design. The most glaring problem is that you can often cannot figure out where to go. In safe zones this means you'll be running around a lot looking for that one ledge to climb, and in enemy zones it means you'll be dying a lot because you couldn't find the place to run away to. It gets very frustrating after a bit.

All in all though, I'd say the DLC is generally "good", and most definitely worth the pickup price.