Monday 26 August 2013

Sour Crouch Says...Be Excited For Outlast

Words: Sour Crouch

Greetings, good people of the Internet. More specifically, you there...in Row A...the one with the big nose and the bum bag. Yeah...come on...oh never mind.

Alright, fine, the rest of you.

To give an outline of my daily doings I will say this - I am a creature of the Internet and most if not every morning I will "do the dailies" which consists of…actually, let’s not go there in too much depth.

Questionable Tor browsing aside, I visit Youtube an absolute ton and my subscriptions feature a slew of, for lack of a better term, "let's players", from the notable ones (Pewdiepie) to the up and coming (Markiplier) all the way to the downright obscure (Myself).

Today, Pewdiepie reminded me that I should be excited for something other than going out and getting wankered. The something in question:

Outlast.

Outlast is an upcoming survival horror game saved for the highest echelons of masochistic players. The rundown is as follows: One guy, alone in an asylum with nothing but a video camera and above-average free running skills to navigate the halls. Oh yeah, naturally...everything wants you dead!

Anybody who has played Amnesia: The Dark Descent will be right at home with this set-up. At least, they'll think they are. You see, the thing about Outlast is that it seems to revel in the chase. You remember all those times when the grizzled man-thing (I wish I knew the actual name...for now I'll refer to them as Bronsons because reasons) from Amnesia catches sight of you, that weird feedback-like noise fills your earphones and you're promptly reminded why you're scared to go out in the hallway after 9pm?

Fortunately for Amnesia fans there were periods of respite, with rest stops along the way to save you from the Bronson-induced fuckstorms your heart has to endure. Ignorantly all I can say from seeing various playthroughs of the PAX East demo is that you don't get those rest stops as frequently. In fact, I'd go so far as to say the game is dissonance incarnate.

And that’s good....right? After all, it's the tension that proves to be the most horrifying thing about many of these games. I mean, I know that the thought that something is out there generally terrifies me more than actually dealing with said beastie. It's like the thought of fucking someone you've been fervently masturbating over for months only to find out they're terrible in the sack. Some would prefer to continue fervently masturbating and never know.

The full schpiel reads:

"In the remote mountains of Colorado, Horrors wait inside Mount Massive Asylum. A long-abandoned home for the mentally ill, recently re-opened by the "research and charity" Branch of the transnational Murkoff Corporation, has been operating in strict secrecy...until now.

Acting on a tip from an inside source, independent journalist Miles Upshur breaks into the facility and what he discovers walks a terrifying line between science and religion, nature and something else entirely. Once inside, his only hope of escape lies with the terrible truth at the heart of Mount Massive”

Naturally, I can only speak for Sour Crouch, but I'm filled with thoughts of walking down murky halls, the cries of inmates or Lovecraft-esque beasties surrounding the hapless Miles. Yeah…exploring every nook and cranny to piece together the grim story of the house and its inhabitants.

So I watch the video and I am filled with warm memories of deliberately brown-trousering myself on Amnesia, SCP Containment Breach and the grandaddy of indie horror, Slender: The Eight Pages. Outlast appears to have the tension nailed to your scrotum whilst it's looking up at you gently tapping the head playfully.

Sour Crouch likes the sound of Outlast. This has been he. If you like the look of Outlast, you can pre-order it here!

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