Outbreak: Shades of Horror Review

Outbreak: Shades of Horror contains three types of campaign. There’s the multiplayer mode where you can roam around a virutal mall with other players and go into raids together. Then there’s two different single player experiences: Chromatic Split Enhanced Edition where players control Lydia who is trapped underground one hour before the outbreak is unleashed. The other one is Trials of Hank; a gambler looking to save his career, marriage and… liquor license for some reason.

Outbreak: Shades of Horror is a trio of third person survival horror games where players must find resources to survive and escape. You’ll be able use a handful of weapons such as steel pipe, broken bottles, handgun, machine guns; just to name a few. As a throwback to classic RE games, you can save your game with ink ribbons. The catch being you find empty ink bottles and need to fill them out… with gunpowder of all things.

This means that when you collect gunpowder, you have a choice to make; save or make additional ammo. You’ll also find health items such as herbs (called sprouts). Another difference from Capcom’s survival horror juggernaut is that in Outbreak, the character is already infected. In the bottom right corner, under your health, you’ll see the percentage of infection. You can slow down the infection by using blue sprouts.

When it comes to the multiplayer modes, you can choose from a bevy of playable characters, but unlike RE: Outbreak, there’s no real difference in their usage. For multiplayer goodness, you can do Raid Mode which isn’t very clear. You’re thrown into an area and have to make it out alive so it doesn’t really stray away from the core gameplay of the campaigns.

Invasion mode which tasks players to protect all civilians from the monsters; if all civilians (or you) die, it’s game over. You’ll be able to use turrets and explosive devices to protect the area. You can also pick up items such as gas cans to set trap for enemies. If the area is too dark, you can light flare (not like having a flashlight would’ve been the better option).

Or finally go through each scenario of the campaign. While the fact that you’re contaminated is a nice touch, it’s a pain in the ass for the aforementioned two modes. Because if you can’t find any blue sprouts during your raid or invasion, you’re kind of fucked as you’ll be 100% infected and dead. And from my time with the game, I managed to find a single sprout in a raid. Most of my invasion attempts ended up me being infected.

The game looks like a seventh generation game; it would’ve fit perfectly into the PS2/GC/Xbox era of gaming. The areas are incredibly dark, questionably designed. Also for some reason, in certain modes, you don’t have a flashlight, but a flare (which does diddly dick); making navigating this hell even more difficult considering you won’t even see enemies until they’re in your face. The soundtrack is generic and unimpressive. During some of the multiplayer mode, you’ll hear stock rock music and the voice over work is abysmal; emotionless. If it weren’t for the fact that some people sound like they have the microphone down their throat, I’d swear this was made with A.I..

The game’s first problem relies in the controls. They feel wobbly; whether it be movement or even trying to shoot. Another nuisance is that you can’t pick up items when you want. Apparently if you try to pick up two consecutive items, the first one will be picked up, but looks like the character needs a break from picking things up because you’ll get a denied sound trying to pick something else immediately after. Also the reticle needs to be precisely on the item to be able to pick up. Button mapping is also questionable at best.

And the other problem, if you reach a locked door, the game will display a prompt saying use X key from your inventory to unlock. A key (or any other item) that you don’t have and need to scour every corner to try and find. Also, especially in the Lydia campaign, while all boxes look the same and are highlighted when targetting them, only some of them are breakable; so much for consistency. I also managed to pick up a map… but couldn’t access it. Also impossible to run for some reason.

It’s baffling seeing this series continue given its piss poor quality. My guess is people are buying it for some reason. Again, this is another garbage game. Clearly the development team does not learn from their previous entries and they don’t bother fixing or improving anything. I know they are most likely uisng the same game engine that they don’t optimize, but this is ridiculous. Controls are slippery, the shooting is wobbly, voice acting is ear-grating. This reminds me of Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City… but worse. Considering how often the classic Resident Evil games are on sale, Outbreak: Shades of Horror is a definite pass. There’s potential but the developers seem hellbent on creating garbage rather than making a better product.