Outlast review: America's most horrifying home movie

Outlast $20.00 Outlast captures the terror of a found footage horror film in a video game. It's an effective, though sometimes predictable, twist on a neglected genre.

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Outlast, the new horror game from Red Barrels, puts you in the shoes of journalist Miles Upshur as he investigates the old Mount Massive Asylum, an abandoned facility in Colorado. Armed only with your faithful handheld video camera, you quickly find out Mount Massive is not nearly as abandoned as it seems and OH MY GOD IS THAT MAN TALKING TO ME WHILE IMPALED ON A GIGANTIC SPIKE?

Outlast is the game equivalent of a found-footage film, a la Blair Witch Project, except actually scary (sorry Blair Witch fans). Whereas most found footage films are made out of necessity, in an attempt to disguise low budgets with a heaping dose of shaky cam and crude lighting, Outlast adapts those characteristics into actual game mechanics.

The best journalism is done in abandoned asylums after dark.

You’re ostensibly “recording” your time at Mount Massive, with the commitment of a journalist who has absolutely no self-preservation instincts. Even in the creepiest moments of the game, you’re rarely forced to put your camera down. I can only imagine you whispering to yourself, “Just keep rolling, Upshur. Keep rolling. You got this. This is going to snag you that daytime Emmy.” Up in the top left of the screen, the timecode ticks by. One hour recorded. Two hours recorded. Upshur must have a very patient editor.

The camera is more than an aesthetic choice, though; it's a makeshift scope. You can use it to zoom in and out at any time or toggle the night vision mode. Night vision is essential, as it’s the only way for your character to see in the darkened ruins of Mount Massive—apparently nobody’s bothered replacing light bulbs in a while.

Using night vision causes the camera’s batteries to drain, though somehow they stay charged during normal recording. It’s a dumb conceit that forces you to scrounge batteries from the environment, but hey, video games and logic rarely play well together and the night vision mechanic is one of the best parts of the game, regardless of whether it makes sense. Hiding under a bed, flicking the night vision on and off trying to spot my pursuer without wasting batteries—it’s tense. “Gotta grab some new pants” levels of tense.

I respect Outlast for never pulling its punches, even if those punches are repulsive. Man impaled lengthwise on a spike? Probably no more than fifteen minutes into the game. And there’s much worse in store.

Outlast doesn't skimp on unsettling/horrifying imagery, but it lasts long enough that eventually even the most grotesque stuff starts to feel predictable.

I’m not big on the gore/torture porn genre of horror. It doesn’t scare me, it just bores me or (occasionally) makes me giggle. Even so, Outlast managed to stun me a few times with how far it was willing to go to disgust me. While films have been pushing those boundaries for years, games tend to shy away from Saw-style imagery.

Outlast's gore isn't always effective. We're still butting up against the far side of the uncanny valley, so a number of moments that would be grotesque in a film are a little slapstick here. The game also suffers from how often it repeats imagery that's supposed to be disturbing: The first time you see blood smeared across the walls it's a bit intimidating, but by five hours in it's the equivalent of a Backstreet Boys poster. Still, congratulations to the developers for having the guts to make a game for adults.

But it's definitely a game. Outlast cycles through three modes of gameplay: one where you're being forced to watch some horrific event, one where you're being chased by a monster, and one where you're simply walking around.

Problem is, the game tries to ascribe the same importance to the first two as it does the last one. It wants the imagery and the “Oh no, I'm being chased through this asylum!” bits to be just as scary as simply walking around, afraid for your life.

They're not, because they're so recognizably game systems. When the game requires me to watch some scene, I know on a subconscious level I'm safe until the scene ends. When I'm getting chased, I know there's somewhere to hide. It's predictable.

Outlast is full of terrifying scenes, but they're often just that—staged scenes that lack any real threat.

Horror games are weird that way. What's most fear-inducing in real life (getting chased by a murderous mental patient) is only tangentially terrifying in games because you can recognize the artifice.

It's the creeping horror that gets you: Slipping through rotting corridors at your own pace, convinced you're making entirely too much noise and everyone for miles around can hear your labored breathing.

Outlast is at its best when nothing happens. The longer nothing happens, the better. A minute of peace and quiet? My heart starts to settle down from the last encounter. Five minutes? Adrenaline starts to rise again, because I know something bad has to happen soon. Fifteen minutes? My nerves are completely frayed.

The most horrible things in Outcast happen in your mind, conjured up by clues in the environment.

These long stretches of Hitchcockian mystery are the best parts of Outlast, and they don't happen enough. The game has moments of sheer brilliance—moments where you're creeping through rotting corridors, your hands scrabbling across the warped floorboards, camera telling you just how long you've been trapped in this god-forsaken place, in fear of the slightest noise, curious whether that figure at the end of the hallway is friend or foe—punctuated by eye-rolling, “I bet I know what's on the other side of this door” cringe, and it's frustrating. An uneven experience, to say the least.

Outlast is a strong entry in a woefully underpopulated genre. The handheld camera gimmick is so smart I'm amazed we don't see more games use it, and despite all my criticisms I admit that Outlast is intense. Few games do a better job with atmosphere.

On the other hand, Outlast does very little to innovate outside of the found-footage conceit, and in fact falls prey to “game-y” tropes on a regular basis: linear (and therefore somewhat predictable) level design, magic batteries, dumb enemies. I haven't even discussed the schlocky story because, frankly, most horror plots aren't worth discussing and Outlast doesn't exactly rock the boat. MKULTRA, an abandoned asylum, zombie-esque monsters, an ominous priest—these aren't exactly genre-bending ideas, and the story takes an even worse turn late in the game.

Despite these problems, Outlast is a horror game that manages to be terrifying in spite of itself. As with any horror game, best results come from playing with the lights off and headphones on.

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Review: Catalog your DVD & Blu-ray movie collection with My Movies

Many of us have accrued a massive collection of DVDs and Blu-ray discs, but not everyone has gone to the trouble of cataloging what they have. But keeping a precise inventory has its advantages, and that is where the free and very capable My Movies more than ably fills the need.

First of all, if you only have a small collection, seeing what you have is easy enough. But if you have a huge collection of hundreds or even thousands of disks, it's very easy to lose the overview of your collection. You may start accidently buying duplicate disks.

Another thought: If you have a disaster such as a burglary, fire, or flood, you can lose your beloved collection.  Home insurance requires exact property lists if you want to make a claim. Again, a few disks makes this an easy task, but if you have hundreds, that's another kettle of fish.

You can add movies by inserting the disk into the hard drive, manual input, or by scanning the barcode in front of the webcam.

Even your own generosity can do you in. If you are in the habit of loaning disks to friends and colleagues, it can become easy to lose track of who has what, and for how long. Keeping a record will help you to recover disks from forgetful friends.

My Movies runs on multiple platforms and allows you to input the details of each DVD and Blu-ray that you own into the software. Entering a title can be done in a variety of ways: manual input; holding the barcode up to the webcam; and my personal favorite, entering the disk into the hard drive to watch as the software automatically detects it and enters the movie details for you.

Once you insert the title, My Movies will upload all of the relevant information for you, including the cover (if it chooses the wrong one, you can change it), plot, actors, production crew and information about the disk itself. You can also specify whether or not you are keeping it, selling it, trading it, or even if it is just on your wishlist.

Once you have updated the desktop software, you can connect to the My Movies server, and instantly update your own dedicated webpage showing your collection.

When the desktop software has all of your disks listed, you can then upload everything to your own free dedicated webspace on the My Movies server. I did this myself so you could look. The speed upon which everything is uploaded depends on how much you are sending over, but on the whole, it's quite a fast process.

What is stunning about My Movies is the breadth of systems that it is available for. There is a Windows 7 (Premium, Professional, and Ultimate) Media Center add-on that allows you to "play your titles, browse cast, play trailers and much more by using a remote control within your living room or home theatre". You can also run My Movies on Mac OS X (free for up to 50 titles or $15 for the unlimited Pro version), Windows Home Server, and iOS and Android (as similarly limited free apps and $5 for iPhone, $7 for iPad, $6 for Android from Google Play, and $4.50 from Amazon).

The only downside to the My Movies desktop software is that you can't rate your movies after you've watched them.  But this minor quibble aside, this is one fantastic piece of software for anyone serious about cataloguing their media collection.

Note: The Download button on the Product Information page takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software.

Expatriate Scotsman now living in Wurzburg, Germany, freelance writer, frustrated future bestselling author, obsessed bibliophile. Other interests include trying to understand The Architect in the Matrix movies, decrypting codes and ciphers, and trying to persuade my landlord and my wife to let me have a Highland Cow for a pet.
More by Mark O'Neill

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Required Pre-Reading for The Raven Movie: iPoe E-Book Explored

“The Raven”, written in 1845, is by far Edgar Allen Poe’s biggest hit. And we’re on a knife’s edge as we await the release of the new John Cusack/James McTeigue movie by the same name, set to be released April 27. But, the movie isn’t about that wonderful poem, it’s about is other disturbing pieces of fiction; a “Seven” for the 1900s, if you will, as a mysterious bad guy recreates Poe’s fictional murders. To prepare for this literary adventure, we think the $3.99 iPoe iPad app (unconnected to the film) should be required reading.

This interactive, multimedia-packed e-book walks you through three of Poe’s short stories; “The Oval Portrait”, “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Masque of the Red Death.” There is also a short biography of Poe’s life and a collection of the illustrator’s sketches.

iPoe, by Play Creatividad, is navigated solely by three buttons at the bottom of the screen. The middle button pops up a home screen, with settings for language (available in English, French or Spanish) and social sharing. The buttons on either bottom edge are the only way to page forward and back. In an age where we’re accustomed to tapping or swiping to turn the page, we were repeatedly frustrated by this. We also wanted to turn the iPad into landscape mode to get a better veiw, but iPoe only works in portrait mode.

Expertly illustrated by David Garcia Fores, the animated sketches in each story reminded us of a digital comic, but it’s the hidden interactive gems that we found truly captivating. The animation was sometimes automatic, showing a menacing red figure drift across the screen in one instance. In other places you have to tap the screen to make eyes move, heads bob or backgrounds change color. Once we realized most pages have some sort of engaging element on them, it made more sense as to why you couldn’t swipe to turn the page.

In each story some object blocks the text on the page, requiring you to interact with a locket or dismembered body to move it out of the way. And in two instances, the designer created a spotlight effect where you must move your finger around the page to illuminate an illustration and/or text. While we wished there were some key or icon to tell us when we were reading a page with a secret easter egg on it, we particularly loved the surreptitious placement of Princess Leia in a gold bikini.

[Moby Dick for iPad Breathes New Life Into Classic]

Each story is set to its own, somewhat boring original soundtrack by Teo Grimalt, which is dominated by monotone synthesizer hums, high-pitched piano notes and gusts of eery wind. For this master of mystery we’d have preferred music more on the scale of the soundtrack to “Jaws” as opposed to the ghostly melodic and sometimes sad sounds from this app. There was only one page in all the app that made us jump, toward the end of “The Masque of Red Death.”

The biography of Poe was entertaining and interesting to read, but we wished for a bit more detail. While we believe the movie version of Poe’s life to be completely fictional, we would like to be able to put more context to the events of his career. We also wish there were a music-off setting so we could enjoy the app without these distractions. All that said, this was an excellent interactive experience, well worth the $3.99, and served to satiate our Edgar Allen Poe needs while we wait for the movie.

Now, if only there were an Android version.

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Facebook's Timeline Movie Maker Turns Users' Lives into Film

Facebook users can use Timeline, the site’s new profile layout, to turn their lives into a movie. Marketing Agency Definition 6 and Facebook have released Timeline Movie Maker, an app that automatically parses your Timeline profile to create about a 55-second movie from your memories stored in the social network.

Facebook is hoping that more companies will be encouraged to take advantage of Timeline and create more novel apps for people to view and experience their new profile. "We think there will be lots of companies that come up with fun, innovative ways for people to extend the Timeline experience," a Facebook official told PCWorld.

Of course, that may raise the hackles of privacy advocates concerned about how a Timeline app could misuse information it is allowed to access. But it's important to keep in mind that Movie Maker and any subsequent apps are completely optional and no one is forcing users to share their data with third-party companies.

If you want to give Movie Maker a try, here's how it works.

To get started, log in to Facebook and then point your browser to the Timeline Movie Maker site and press the green button that says "Make Your Movie." You'll then have to sort through two approval screens asking you for permission to access your basic information, e-mail address, other profile data such as hobbies, your posts, and your News Feed. The app does not ask for permission to post anything to your profile automatically.

After that you can just sit back and wait for the app to sort through your profile information to create your movie. Shortly thereafter, the video will start playing, showing you photographs and videos from your Timeline. If your personalized movie looks familiar, that's because the video is built on the same template as Facebook's Timeline introductory video released in September. Your video even uses the same soundtrack and even includes some generic photos from that original video when the camera is speeding past "your" Timeline.

After the movie is done, you'll have the option to replay it or you can swap out the music for one of four additional soundtrack themes including nostalgic, cinematic, romantic and playful. Once you choose a new soundtrack, you have to press the "Remake Your Movie" button at the bottom of the screen. The app will then go through the motions to rebuild your movie. But in my tests, the music was the only thing that changed.

There is also a filmstrip at the bottom of the page that lets you change any of the photos you don't like with new ones. But you can't drag and drop or easily swap out your photos from Facebook. Instead, you have to keep clicking on the photo as the app rotates through your Facebook collection until you find an image you like.

Movie Maker also has a share option after the movie is finished playing, but it's entirely disappointing. The only thing you can share is a link to Movie Maker, there is no option to post the finished product to Facebook, Twitter or your own website. There is also no way to download the finished movie.

But if you want to have a fun look at some of your profile information that is only viewable by you and the people crowding around your PC's monitor, then Movie Maker is a neat way to experience your Timeline.

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