My first go-round with Outlast on PS4

This week, Sony's latest Playstation Plus offering on the PS4 is a brand new game called Outlast. (Actually released on Steam back in September, but finally making its way to console now per my ongoing research.) Granted the PS4's library is just a sliver of the offering that the last generation of console's provide's us, really anything that's coming to the PS4 right now is a pretty big deal! Not discounting the quality of any the titles available, in fact there are numerous great games to delve into on the PS4 right now already. Anyways, back to Outlast. This game is described as a "first-person survival horror experience." Just saying that on the description of a next-gen console title, the first of it's kind, really gets your interest going.

In summary, I've only progressed through the first real mission. Don't let the whole "survival horror experience" fool you here. This isn't your typical guns-blazing at zombies to get the most points and upgrading weapons and equipment only to cause more destruction. There literally is no combat whatsoever besides the cut scenes when the character pushes enemies away. Your character can practically climb, vault, jump, slide, and crawl his way pretty much anywhere. In the first mission itself pretty much all of those tactics were put into good use.  Also, another x-factor into this game is that your equipped with a video camera that has night vision, given the setting has many dark places you must encounter. You also have to worry about finding batteries around the map to keep your camera functioning, at menial task that quickly becomes tedious and my only real main gripe about this game.

Setting wise, there isn't too much to it, which is ok! It's basically set in a Psychiatric hospital on the top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere, that's been overrun by either zombies or some other type of creatures, (how original eh?), something that will probably be elaborated on more as I progress. Pretty simple, but this game already takes great use of the PS4's hardware capabilities and the attention to detail on this game is superb, and that's putting it lightly, In the beginning of the game you are still outside and still see the night sky building as the sun has already set and it's darkening outside. I caught myself just staring at sky for about five minutes. Not afraid to admit that.

So my overall take is that, although I haven't really invested too much time into this genre of games, I was quickly mentally and emotionally enamored into this game. Every time something would happen (trying to keep it spoiler free for the most part) I would literally jump and have a mini heart attack. I seriously can't think I've ever had that happen to me so many times in a game. (Sorry Dead Space). You really can't compare this game to any other really, and for it being a free PS Plus exclusive, you can't go wrong with downloading this.

Outlast is truly a gaming experience like I've never had before, and if this is a foreshadowing of what creativity may come of this next-generation of consoles, then us consumers are really in luck. You can't go wrong with Sony and Microsoft competition.

In the meantime, I had quite the laugh at Blacklight: Retribution, a free to play title on the PS4.