Customer Reviews

Penumbra: Black Plague

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I can't believe there are no other reviews here for this game. I can't believe the price has fallen so low too. Penumbra Black Plague is an excellent experience. This Penumbra is sooo much better than the first Penumbra Overture. The story is intriguing. The atmosphere is incredibly spooky. The controls are good. Being able to move in a first person manner and being able to handle and pick any object up really adds to the realism.

It's hard to stop playing once you get started. I have enjoyed Black Plague much better than I did Penumbra Overture. Black Plague seems a lot more stable of a game than Overture too. This game has truly scared me many times where Overture never did at all. In fact, this game is just as scary to me as Darkness Within. At this price, Penumbra Black Plague is worth a try.

You might have found this game after you played the original Penumbra game. Or maybe you saw the old engine tech demo Frictional released. I am here to tell you, this game is superb, and at the price it is, you have no excuse not to buy it, AND its predecessor.

The original Penumbra was similar in some ways- it was all physics based, which was still relatively new at the time. It had engaging, brain-bending puzzles, a compelling story line, and an atmosphere that was rich and encompassing. Still, there were some things, such as the combat system, which held it back a bit. Overture has stripped out all that was wrong with the original game, and the result is a masterpiece.

First and foremost, this is a horror game. And it is scary as hell. Aside from maybe Fatal Frame, this is the creepiest game I have played for a very long time. It achieves this in the way the best horror novels do, through intense psychological discord, and visuals which are quite nice, even now (2008). Light plays a huge part in the game, as the game is entirely lit per-pixel, and oftentimes you have to rely various tools to light your path (glowsticks, flashlight, flares, using lighter on gasoline, etc). It shares mechanics with light-based games such as Splinter cell, where you are concealed from enemies by darkness. MAKE NO MISTAKE, this is NOT Doom 3. Enemies will not be lunging out at you, and your flashlight is your friend, not your enemy.

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Because the combat has been entirely stripped from the game, you RARELY actually kill your enemies. In fact, aside from maybe one instance (where you use a physics trap to kill an enemy), you never engage them. This is part of what makes the game so frightening. Unlike Doom, where you run in with guns blazing, the protagonist here is just an ordinary guy, and he/you are afraid of ALL enemies.

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Another interesting aspect of this game, which to my knowledge is still pretty much unique, is the mechanism by which you interact with the environment. In games like Half Life 2, you have superficial contact with the environment- throwing enemies, rocks, etc. Here, the player is completely in the first person. You use a "hand" cursor to manipulate your surroundings in an extremely realistic way. To open drawers, you pull on them and look inside. Same with doors and nearly everything else. Heavy objects are harder to move, etc. Surprisingly, this almost never gets in the way, and adds to the game's amazing realism.

The way you can "observe" objects is reminiscent of old point-and-click adventure games, and is marvelously cerebral. The puzzles you encounter are all logic-based, and the solution is often something so mundane, like picking up a plank to lay across a chasm so you can cross it, that people who are used to fantastical magic-staff hunting may be stumped initially. There are NO pixel hunts in this game.

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The sound is superb and immersive, that's all that needs to be said.

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The game's story is quite good, at least compared to most games nowadays, with a chilling Lovecraftian denouement. You can probably piece together most of the story throughout the game though, from various notes and such you find.

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One gripe some people might have with the game is the length- this game took me ~7 hours to finish, which is a tad short compared to some other games. Others might finish it in 6, and others might finish in 10. Personally, when I finished the game, it felt like just the right length, especially after having played the first one.

For the bargain price you can buy this game, the length is a non-issue. You can buy the first and second acts for less than a new console game, and together they would be longer.

Friends, this game is so unique and interesting, you would be doing yourself a disservice by overlooking it. Penumbra: Overture is a worthy addition to any game library, and a must-buy for any horror/survival aficionado.


My Score: [88/100]

Ehhhh I guess my video card can't handle this game. Played it at a friend's house - it's sweet. Check out the gameplay on YouTube before buying and you'll get a good idea of what to expect

NOTE: Before you purchase Penumbra:Black Plague, you should know that this is the 2nd installment of a series of three episodes. You can play Plague without having played Overture, but if you're like me then you'll regret not getting the entire collection from the start(the collection is also offered on Amazon at the time of writing).

You see, I was worried that I would not like this type of game. A FPS without the S? I didn't see how being defenseless was going to keep me interested for very long, but that is the beauty of this game: you can't just run around blowing everything up. You have to explore, piece together clues, and adapt to the environment to survive....

Synopsis:
Penumbra puts you in the shoes of a man on the search for answers - answers about the father you barely knew, answers that you may not be prepared to hear. The search takes you to your father's last known location: a remote and secretive facility in Greenland, buried deep within the glacial ice. It doesn't take long for you to discover that something has gone terribly wrong here, and unraveling the history of this place, and what part your father played in it, is the mystery that drives this adventure.

Game Play:
The mechanics of Penumbra are simple - you can walk, run, crouch and jump, just as in any other FPS. Looking around with the mouse will reveal objects that you can interact with. Some you can add your sparse inventory, others you pick up or manipulate in some way. Items in your inventory can sometimes be combined to create new items and figuring out how combine them is often a central piece of the puzzle you must solve to proceed. Another interesting aspect of the game is how you use objects that you can't add to your inventory. Rather than clicking once on say, a door, and having it swing open or closed, you 'grab' objects and move them just like you would in real life. That means that you can slowly open doors to peak out; drawers, valves and levers react according to your hand motions rather than being 'click-to-activate' and so on. Many objects can also be 'investigated', that is, you can get your character's impressions of what he is looking at. Often this is no more than a way to set the atmosphere and provide a visceral element ("The stench from this sink is unbearable") but it also serves as a way to provide hints for how to proceed ("This door looks weak, I wonder if I can find a way to force it").

There aren't any weapons in this game - sorry Mr. Freeman, but there's not even a trusty crowbar to fall back on - but then again, there really aren't that many enemies either. When you do encounter a monster your only option is to run and hide, or to barricade yourself in room until they wander off again. You can't even look at the enemies directly without experiencing a simulated panic. Your vision will blur, your heart will pound in your ears and your breathing turns to ragged gasps. This game simply is not about combat, it's about the experience; the whole point is to immerse you in this twisted mystery, to make you feel, vicariously at least, your character's disempowerment and isolation. At that it succeeds admirably.

Story:
The story is engrossing enough, although it treads through mostly familiar territories - suffice it to say that most of the central elements have appeared in film and novels in some form. The execution is competent and well paced, and the atmosphere and characters are more than engaging enough to keep you interested. I believe that those that played the first installment will find the conclusion thought-provoking and somewhat of a twist, but without being over-the-top ridiculous. I should also mention that the voice acting is superb, and lends the few characters in the story a great deal of personality.

Any complaints?
Well, it's too short, but if you take the full series into account you've got a complete game. On it's own Black Plague is a 2-3 day diversion, even for a casual gamer. Replay value is practically zilch because, honestly, you can't really be surprised the second time around, can you? The puzzles can really only be solved one way, so there's not much a second run can offer you on that front either.

If I have one truly legitimate complaint about Penumbra it is the lack of depth in the environments. I'm not talking about the graphics necessarily (which for an indie game are quite good, really) but rather the lack of diversity in the objects and textures. It's a bit disappointing that more attention was not paid to fleshing out the generic rooms and hallways of the facility. It also would have been nice to have more areas to explore that were entirely optional and just added for depth and to reward the more curious players. However, this can be attributed to the small scale of the development team and is a small price to pay for a truly fantastic gameplay experience.

Bottom Line:
Looking for a Bioshock or Halflife title? Is the only good zombie a dead zombie? Then Penumbra is not for you. If you want a somewhat different action game, something that offers a genuine scare or two and some interesting puzzles to solve, then get the whole collection now - as Penumbra's protagonist implores right from the start "don't make the same mistakes I did". Enjoy.

All of these games have been terrific. The gaming engine relies on realistic physics. You can pick up items and throw them etc.. Excellent game - try it!!

I thought this game was better than the first game, Penumbra Overture. You still have timed puzzles, WASD interface instead of point-and-click, specific save points, and attacks by creatures that you can't kill. I liked the research facility environment. This game does finally fill in the story and has an ending that I found satisfying. You don't actually have to play the first game because this game fills you in on what happened before. I only paid $10 for this and it was definitely worth it.

finally a five star adventure game for us all. Creepy, atmospheric and filled with well designed puzzles, Penumbra BP will test your adventurer skills to the limit. Note that there are several action sequences in the game so for pure adventure gamers BP will be tougher than the usual. Still , we need more titles like this! Bravo

So i bought a this game Penumbra Black Plague. I installed it and played it once next time i try to start the game a tab comes up that says "Unable to authenticate original disc within time limit". Thanks for making me waste my money on something that doesn't even work!

I was unable to use this game on either of my computers. I have Windows XP on one computer and Windows 7 on another and was unable to run this game on either of these computers. I was not happy with this product.

This chapter of the Penumbra series puts all our questions from the first installment to rest.

The game continues the creepy atmosphere of the series. There's a slight difference, though: while Overture was all about isolation, this one is more about paranoia. Our protagonist finds himself distrusting those around him, and even his own perception.

There is one feature I found kind of annoying: the character of Clarence. He was supposed to be disturbing, but I just found him an obnoxious jerk with poor, over-the-top voice acting.

This is not a typical FPS. The emphasis is entirely on stealth. You can't kill enemies.