Customer Reviews

Penumbra Overture

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This is a first person adventure game, not an "fps" adventure. So if you walk into this with the 'shooter' word stuck in your mind you will be disappointed. The interactive environment, which I'll admit isn't perfect, sufficiently serves its purpose once you're used to it. I didn't have a problem with it at any time... well... maybe there were a few mishaps with dynamite.

Speaking of the environment, it is done quite well overall. You're in a mineshaft, its gonna be dark! If its that much of a problem to you, you have your trusty torch (ie flashlight, which is dependent on batteries - GASP, realism) or you have your glowstick, which is infinite (whoops, there went the realism). Both provide certain advantages over the other. You will often find yourself without any light source however, as you do have to sneak around quite a bit. Fortunately they implemented a "night vision" feature into sneaking, which helps significantly in the earlier stages of the game.

And why do you have to sneak around? Well just running around an empty mineshaft would be somewhat boring and easy. So there are feral "creatures" that you must avoid. Sadly, sneaking is the only effective way to bypass them, as they CANNOT be killed with weapons (there is a way to kill them later on, and at that point it is a dish best served steaming). A smack will simply knock them back, then you're supposed to run for your life and hide, but that is a rather tricky endeavor as they don't go down for long. The eight legged friends which appear later on can be killed with two good swipes, but as they usually come in groups which eat you alive, you're once again forced to find an alternative method of dealing with them.

This brings us to the combat system, which is by far the most aggravating part of the game. You must click, move the mouse one way, then move it the other way. Sounds easy, but in mid swing your movement is limited (due to the fact that your mouse is preoccupied with swinging) while your target is moving like Muhammad Ali, dancing around you until its ready to strike. When you only take 3-4 hits to die, you will die... often.

The combat is the only, truly bad part to the game. The fear/horror factor was implemented quite well, with the environment, lighting and sound all adding to tense moments. I didn't say much about the puzzles because there isn't that much too them, they may only challenge you for one of two reasons: you didn't find that one important document, or you need to re-read everything you've found. Everything else is simply like other adventure games, where you may find yourself loading often after taking a wrong turn or not hitting a switch in time.

This was a great game, the only thing i have to complain about is the lack of replay value, but all in all it was worth the time and money. This game literally scared me out of my seat a few times and the plot is very well thought out.

The sequel is very much the same; great story, enviromental puzzles, and shocking scares, but no replay. I recommend it as well.

I really enjoyed this game. I'm a horror fan and have to say the horror element was well implemented. I also really love the controls. It's very innovative and fun once you get used to it. They way you interact with objects reminds me very much of the Wii, except with a mouse. The storyline holds my interest and I can't wait for episode 2.

I didn't pay enough attention to the reviews. This game is half adventure-half annoying WASD movement. I liked the creepy atmosphere and I liked it when I was exploring. I had to use my programmable gamepad to make the controls useable. I had to use a trainer to keep from getting killed by the dogs all the time. My three-year-old Dell ran the game just fine. I didn't like the timed puzzles. You have to hold down three keys to run fast enough and that ruins the immersion doing the same sequence 8 times to get it right. The plot was engaging and kept me wanting to play. Worst of all is you get to the end and you didn't really learn anything. The game just ends and now you have to buy the sequel - not fair. Overall, I think it's worth playing - try not to spend too much.

I picked up Penumbra because I was really interested in the theme. Story wise: you receive a letter from your missing father one day, telling you to burn all the contents of a chest in your attic. Instead, you look at the contents and find a map with a small area circled on it in greenland. So, you go to the location on the map, and a blizzard hits! You stagger through the blizzard, and find a small access hatch in the ground. You climb in, and it snaps shut behind you, and your ladder breaks. You are now within an underground complex and the meat of the game begins here.

I like adventure games, especially creepy adventure games like this. One thing I really liked was how there were no static images, it uses a first person perspective and free look and free movement. This was excellent. The puzzles in the game were very nice as well.

However, the combat was terrible. Your main weapon is a hammer that doesn't do you any good anyway, although you find a pistol later and a stick of dynamite at one time. The game tries to scare you with some combat, and also the risk of combat in other scenes. Often, you just end up dying, annoyingly, over and over. The game would have been scary enough if they had made fewer enemies, but made you almost helpless against them, having to hide for maybe 1 minute or so while it patrols your area, looking for you, and then leaves. Maybe one or two combats interjected would have been fine too.

Fortunately, I found the solution to dealing with all those angry devil-dogs in the game: find a box to stand on. If you stand on a box and move to the corner away from where the dog is coming from, you can sit there while it jumps at you to attack and whack it with the hammer. This is about the extent of how intelligent the AI and combat system is. There are a couple of traps you can set for enemies, but this is pretty much it. And you will hate the spiders.

PROS:
-freelook/freemove is great
-good puzzles
-good scary environment

CONS:
-too much fighting
-stupid AI

This game could have been fantastically suspenseful if not for the horrible controls. I'm not a fan of FPS games where the camera is only from the characters eye for 2 reasons. First, controlling the action is nearly impossible; you just don't have the right perspective. Second, the ever present fish-eye lens. Are they trying on purpose to make me sick & give me a whopping headache? Why torture the audience?!

It is possible to create a game where the mouse & keyboard work seamlessly together and the action seems second nature. That doesn't happen in this game, I blame this mostly on the forced first person perspective. The controls are set up fairly straightforward and intelligently, but it stops there. The game first starts out with very helpful explanations how to perform certain actions as you need them. However, complex actions (such as turning a wheel) were very difficult to perform and little help was offered as to how to do them. I spent a great deal of time just trying to get the character positioned correctly so that I could perform actions. Then my action icon would disappear if I didn't do it just right or I accidentally dropped an item. I was forced to move the character around in an attempt to trigger the action icon, and many times it would trigger and disappear immediately.

Not all of the action possibilities were covered and I was left in the very beginning trying to figure out how to move a bookcase. I tried all sorts of positions and tools, only to find out that I was supposed to grab it and walk backwards (in effect pulling it onto myself).

Another problem is actually seeing the game. I had to play it at night, with all the lights off, with the brightness and contrast turned up to max on my monitor and even then it was still hard to see. Totally unacceptable.

As for the game itself, it is definitely suspenseful and scary. It really had some first class scares in it, and unlike some scratchy-type games, these scares are intersperse throughout the game. I really think this is one of the scarier games I've played, with great atmosphere. Most of my fear came from the unknown. They successfully utilized sound (or the lack thereof) to scare the bejeezus out of me. Unfortunately, the frustrating controls really break the mood and, for me, ruined the overall game.

If you like the FPS fish-eye lens type games, you will definitely like this one. If you are more like me, but want and interactive suspenseful game, allow me to recommend "Indigo Prophecy", which I like to describe as 'WOW'. :)

I don't understand where all the negative feedback for this game is coming from. Everyone is complaining about the controls and combat? If you know how to operate a keyboard, then you won't have a problem. I just finished the game and had to use a trackpad instead of a mouse, so it obviously isn't too hard to manage. Yes, combat is difficult, but it's not a combat game. You're supposed to outwit the enemies so that you don't have to fight them.
Awesome puzzles in such a tense setting were great and suspense grows and grows as you unravel more information about the mysterious mine. Overcoming every little challenging obstacle was a victory worth celebrating. I urge you to go to any game review site and see how high the ratings are from people that know what they're talking about before you decide not to buy this.

Highlyyy recommended

When a genre starts to feel a little too familiar, both gamers and big developers often turn to smaller indie game-makers for something fresh. This was certainly the case with Frictional Games' Penumbra, a survival horror set in a forgotten mine buried in Greenland's glacial ice. What began as a demo designed to showcase the studio's in-house HPL engine ultimately led to a collection of three titles: Penumbra:Overture, Black Plague, and Requiem. Taken as a whole they comprise a complete game - I highly recommend purchasing the Penumbra: The Complete Collection, rather than purchasing the chapters separately.

Penumbra is written in the "past-tense", that is, it frames the events of the story as having already occurred. As the player you are simply reliving the memories of the protagonist, presumably by reading a letter that he sent you. You are informed quite quickly that the writer presumes he will be dead by the time you read his account, and so it begins...

What makes Penumbra special is the attention to story, atmosphere and puzzle solving. The game gives the requisite nod to the half-life physics-based puzzles that inspired it, but takes the concept introduced by that classic game to a new level. As you make your way deeper and deeper into the mine you collect the clues that will help you make use of the sparse items that you find, and you'll also come face to face with great horrors.

There's a good scare factor in Overture, but Black Plague is by far the creepier chapter. That being said, Overture is the more challenging of the two. In any case, the entire series comes highly recommended!

plenty of atmosphere await the PC gamer willing to give this title a chance despite some negative feedback here on Amazon-
the bleak, scary and oppressive atmosphere here in spades will immerse you in the game, and the finale is satisfying - heck you may even develop some affection for the characters if you play the game in different sessions
Well done then to the developers. The second game in the Penumbra series is also good, but the third is a bit of a stinker really.

First and foremost, this is a far cry from the normal adventure game. However, that does not mean it follows the usual conventions of a first-person shooter, although the game does try to blend both into a new gaming experiences. Add in an extra part horror and stealth-game and you have this unusual experiment. And, for the most part, I believe it succeeds, very well.

Taking cues from both genres, Penumbra: Overture does away with the frenzied action of an fps and replaces it with a methodical, almost languid melee journey through some mining complex underneath the frozen wastes of Greenland. As for the story, it borrows the diatribes of most adventure games, drawing out long and complex, albeit interesting plot details in the form of notes and letters from bygone denizens of the warped mine. For the most part, the story succeeds, beginning with the cliched 'mysterious letter' trope and giving you good reason to travel. However, it is the gameplay that truly brings this apart from any other game, adventure or otherwise. As an aside, it almost feels as if the developers were trying to simulate the Wii for combat. Let me explain: as an adventure, you're deigned to using more 'pedestrian' methods of dispatching (or not) your foes. You grab a hammer, hold down the left-click mouse button, and wildly flail the mouse up and down, as well as side-to-side. Unwieldy? Oh, incredibly, but this gives the game its charm. It tries to simulate the futile, sluggish blows of a sickly 30-something physicist. Again, it succeeds.

The game was also designed by some physicist. Penumbra manages to make nearly every item, including doors and shelves, fully interactive, accompanied by a complex, realistic physics-engine. You must emulate the action of pulling open a door or lifting a crate with the mouse, fully immersing the player. And the game does a phenomenal job of putting you into Philip's shoes.

Also, there is no way of saving whenever you feel. You must rely on autosaves, which occur every couple of times you enter a new area, or these odd glowing lamps that reveal fragments of monologue when you encounter them. On the plus side, they are scattered quite liberally throughout the game, so saving was never a problem for me.

As for the atmosphere, Penumbra delieves in spades. Every corner of the game has this dilapidated, eerie feeling. Old, burnt-out lamps sway back and forth, hushed voices of ghosts slide from underneath doors, footsteps are heard in the distances, slowly approaching. Your torch (flashlight) flickers and dies, without warning; it's also worth mentioning that you must have batteries for the it. Things lung at you as your character wheezes in fear. And speaking of lunging, I must mention the spiders. Oh, the bain of my existance. Lets just say this isn't for arachnophobes. Ugh. At least you're allowed to run and hide from these monstrosities; this is a primary element, and the game gives you some 'night-vision' to allow you to plan your moves. But, on a quick note, the AI is not the brightest. While the developers may have graduated from Cambridge, your foes sure haven't. But, it is a tiny gripe and they do a good job for the most part.

If you are wishing for something different, scary and somewhat poignant, Penumbra delievers. It is a wonderful experience and the trilogy is easily worthwhile. However, like all good things, there are some flaws, which may or may not be perceived as horrible. But, if you can look past some odd controls, you are in for one ride.