Recent reviews by yumyumLover

Orcs must - indeed - die.

About as good as the second game.
Nerf the lasers please.
4/5 would recommend.

Ruthless and unforgiving. I love it.

Hell yeah, spaghetti

2024 edit: Still spaghetti

The first Outlast game is my all time favorite in the horror genre. Therefore, I probably had high expectations for the sequal when it came out, and sure, the game does shine in certain areas. However, I do not recommend that you buy Outlast II.

I will attempt to explain why, I think Outlast II isn't an enjoyable game, even though I really want it to be great.

CONS:
Horror games depends on the atmosphere to deliver it's experience, and Outlast II takes away that part by designing the levels in a manner that feels linear, if you are used to playing survival horror games. After playing through many encounters, it is easy to find a pattern. The following situation is true in almost any encounter in the game: When the bad guys are chasing you, and you have very little time to react, you might not chose the correct path in a 50/50 situation, and that ends up getting you killed. However, the level design often makes it impossible to salvage your mistake and getting you through the situation, without having to start over. This makes the encounters into trial and error situations, which diminishes the "horror"-part and becomes tedious for the player. Just to be clear, I completed the game on normal difficulty, which I assume was the setting the developers designed the gameplay around.

The story is incomprehensible to almost anyone, not trying to collect 100% of the notes in-game. Don't get me wrong, I actually think the game has a good story in place, if you know where to look. But the story doesn't naturally progress if you simply follow the checkpoints. The original Outlast had a great story that was delivered to the player in a natural manner. The notes and collectibles delivered extra background information, but was not nessecary to understand the entire story. In Outlast II you need to pick up scattered notes around the forest, village and caves, to actually find out what is going on. With a game focused so much by the story to drive you, I find it unacceptable, that this is the way to present the storyline to the player. Even though I myself attempted to collect most of the collectibles, I couldn't piece key parts of the narrative together, because I missed an important note or two throughout my playthrough. This is difficult to avoid, when half the game is running away and trying to survive. Also, the ending is open, with DLC probably coming at a later time with the conclusion. The developers are thereby forcing us to buy it, for us to get the ending of the story, which is a despicable marketing strategy. The original Outlast had a concluding ending in and of itself, with the DLC adding a whole different perspective and a more wholesome ending, after the events to the first part.

The healing and bandage mechanic is an annoyance to deal with. It could be succesfully implemented and it makes sense in the setting of the horror genre, however, it adds deeper problems to the gameplay that I feel the need to adress. When you are at low health you cannot run, and when you are healing yourself you have to walk for a few seconds. But you need to heal yourself to be able to run. So it basically means that when you get to low health in the middle of an encounter, you are going to die, which kindda makes the extra health pointless.

Also, there are freaking batteries lying around for you to loot everywhere. In the middle of the jungle. An excessive amount. The primitive villagers and cavedwellers really know how to power their devices. Atleast in the original game, there was electronic devices all over the place, so it made sense.

PROS
The graphics and the atmosphere at the start of the game is astounding. When you first enter the jungle, it genuenly feels creepy to wander around the outskirts of civilization, while the annoying part of the game hasn't hit you yet. Outlast II also added the sound mechanic to the camera, which actually is a nice addition, and which brings something else to the gameplay. The game actually does extremely well in the "flashback" areas of the game, and this is where it truly shines. Instead of following the linear paths of the jungle, you get to explore this creepy school while learning about your past, and the tragic event that occurred there. However, the flashback moments arent void of the trial and error gameplay either, but it felt like a true horror game at times, even more so than the original game

CONCLUSION
Outlast II is a mediocre horror game with huge flaws in both storytelling and gameplay. It does extremely well in few parts of the game, but poorly in the rest. If you are willing to overlook the aforementioned flaws, Outlast II could be a great game experience for you, as it certainly includes the creepy vibes and moments of a great horror game. But if you are a veteran at survival horror games, or a person with little patience, Outlast II will get to your nerves and this probably isn't the game for you.

I highly recommend this game.

If you are into arena battles, short game timers and tons of fun, this is the game for you. I believe the artwork and graphics in-game are great, and for me it has been both a fantastic casual and competitive gameplay experience. Easy to learn, hard to master.

The developers have been adding more champions and features since the game first became avaliable as well, and I look forward to the updates yet to come. This is a goldmine in the early access game group, which has seen plenty of lesser-than-acceptable titles in the past.

This game is awesome.. Get it