Okay, it’s about a video game, but imagine this: no guns, no grenades, no bat, no sword, no magic. Imagine being trapped in an insane asylum with unspeakably, unsightly hideous beasts with the following for your protection:
1 notepad;
1 high definition video camera with night vision function.
Yes, you’re basically fucked.
The game is called Outlast. You play an over-earnest investigative journalist who’s clearly out of his depth, yet still decides to trawl through the murky past of a (thought to be) long since abandoned insane asylum. All the basic facets of the video game are stripped to the absolute bare minimum, no salvation or help, and here, you’re unequivocally the hunted. No sense of power or predatory entitlement in this undeniably rare yet refreshingly welcome video game scenario. You can walk, run, look, climb and use the night-vision to see through the pitch black darkness; and even that marginally tactical advantage isn’t inexhaustible, there’s only a small smattering of batteries darted around the place. You’d better stock up, too, or you’ll last roughly as long as a film executive pitching a big budget, warm-hearted Jimmy Savile biopic.
Allow me to elaborate.
You’re edging down a tight corridor, the visibility is down to zero, you click your video camera’s night vision on, with a high pitched digital squeal. You’re suddenly confronted by a hulking demon, eyes burning through the darkness right at you. Your character’s breath, your breath, becomes audible, fast and heavy all in one horrific moment. You turn and run into a nearby room, slamming and barely bolting the door shut in terror. You pause, your heart beating through your chest like a small metal pipe trying to ram through your rib cage. Silence. Then the silence is shattered by the horrific hybrid smash of flesh on wood. CRACK…CRACK…CRACK…
Amidst your panic, you spot a bed in the corner of the room, darting over and sliding under it.
CRRRRAAAAAACK!
With the door now smashed through, the unhinged hulking maniac is in the room with you, his demonic, sadistic grunts competing with your now overwhelmingly terrified, barely suppressed gasps for breath and a heartbeat that sounds like an overly loud, malfunctioning drum machine. Make no mistake, your heart is doing the same.
With a trembling hand, you slowly move the video camera up to your sweating, terror-stricken face. The beeeeeeeeeeeeep of the night vision clicks on. You can see the beast in the room. Can he see you? The thump of his footsteps vibrate the room, shaking your camera’s grainy, bright green screen display.
Thump…thump…thump…
He lets out one last unbearable growl then stomps out into the darkness from whence he came.
And this is just the beginning.
This isn’t a video game so much as an experience in fear. A note-perfect lesson in basic, primal terror. You can run, you can occasionally hide, you can see; but if he sees you first, prepare to have the last thing you see be a pair of bright green piercing eyes glaring malevolently into your soul as a fist the size of your head punches through your chest, tears your heart out, then throws your corpse to the floor like the lifeless piece of meat you’ve just become.
Welcome to Outlast.
Sleep well…
dantandy 