When comparing Friday the 13th: The Game vs Outlast, the Slant community recommends Outlast for most people. In the question“What are the best horror games for PC?” Outlast is ranked 7th while Friday the 13th: The Game is ranked 28th. The most important reason people chose Outlast is:
Outlast combines its tense atmosphere, creepy setting, stellar sound design, and a cast of horrifying inpatients to deliver a truly nightmarish experience. The developers even replaced the usual flashlight found in horror games with a camcorder, which has this really creepy nightvision mode.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Communication between players is encouraged and enhances the gameplay
Communication between the teenagers (players who are playing as Jason's victims) is key to surviving and outsmarting Jason. For example, if a player has found the fuel for the car and two other players have found the keys and car engine, they can all communicate and decide to meet at the car in order to escape.
Pro Perfectly captures the feel of what it must be like to be Jason
Friday the 13th perfectly captures the feeling of playing as an extremely menacing character. You methodically hunt other players and gain more and more supernatural powers as time goes by. Some of these powers include Sense (similar to Eagle Vision in Assassin's Creed) or Morph, which lets you teleport immediately across the map.
Pro Six different Jasons are playable, each one of them with advantages and disadvantages
There are six types of Jasons to choose from, each one of them based on a type of Jason that appeared in one of the movies. There's even the original Jason from the second movie with a paper bag on his head.
The differences are not only cosmetic, each Jason has his own advantages and disadvantages. Part 3 Jason for example can run but has very weak stun resistance. This also changes the way all players approach the game, whether you are playing as Jason or the teenagers, you have to adapt your strategy to the type of Jason you are playing as or playing against.
Pro Really scary
Outlast combines its tense atmosphere, creepy setting, stellar sound design, and a cast of horrifying inpatients to deliver a truly nightmarish experience. The developers even replaced the usual flashlight found in horror games with a camcorder, which has this really creepy nightvision mode.
Pro Unpredictable inpatients make exploration more tense
Outlast proves that people can be much scarier than ghosts. As you explore the dark hallways of the insane asylum, you’ll encounter many inpatients. Some of them good, some of them bad, but all of them crazy. So it’s sometimes really hard to tell which one will attack you. While some of them make it very obvious by holding knives or looking especially atrocious, sometimes they will attack unexpectedly. This uncertainty will creep inside your head, making exploration a lot more tense.
Pro Your character is really agile
Unlike most horror games where your character is clumsy and slow, in Outlast your character can actually move really well. Not only is your character fast enough to be able to outrun most enemies in the game, he also knows how to parkour. You can jump, grab ledges and climb them, and even slide over a table during a chase. This makes it a really refreshing horror experience.
Cons
Con Playing as one of the victims may get boring quickly
Playing as one of the teenagers who are being hunted by Jason is not as fun as playing Jason himself. There are roughly four ways you can win the match: escape, survive the night, call the cops or kill Jason.
The last one is the hardest to achieve since it requires a great degree of communication between players. The one you will probably choose more often is escaping which consists of finding different objects that help you make your escape (things like keys, fuel, ropes, etc.). The things you need are randomly scattered each match across the map and you have to look in every drawer, cupboard, or box to find what you need. Unfortunately that's what you will be doing 90% of the time when playing as one of the victims.
Con Quite glitchy
The game is plagued by glitches. Especially collision detection has a lot of problems. It's not uncommon to see players walk through walls or hover in the air.
Con You can't choose whether you can play as Jason or one of the victims
At the start of the game, each player's role is chosen at random. This means that you can't get to choose whether to play as Jason or a victim and there's roughly a 12.5% chance to play as Jason before a game starts.
Con A little too reliant on jump scares
In some parts of exploring the insane asylum there are too many jump scares one after another. After a while it loses its scare factor and instead becomes somewhat annoying. This feels like a missed opportunity to build on the dark and gritty atmosphere of the insane asylum.
Con No substance, unrealized potential and utterly disappointing
Once you get past the jump scares, gore and shock value you might find that there's very little to keep you invested and going back for more. Boredom may sink in nearing the end, with a sense of longing for the game to just be over. However, the night vision mechanic was fresh and unique at the time and introduced a sense of suspense, which other developers have lent from Outlast since. If you're a fan of traditional western horror games you will not disappointed, but if you're looking for something more to your horror games besides learning paths and jump scares, you might want to steer clear of Outlast.
Con Cliche story
The typical horror story protagonist goes to investigate a location that simply oozes danger. As if the abandoned SWAT trucks, locked doors, and boarded up windows were not telling enough, the protagonist realizes his terrible mistake right when there's no way back already.