Adventure games are a major niche genre. And I do not like them very much. I feel like I’m an illiterate trying to read by moonlight. I often feel like there is some sort of disconnect between the player and the actual gameplay. There’s no rush, and usually an adventure game’s internal logic varies between pure logic and obscure. So why would I mention all of this? Penumbra: Overture, Penumbra: Black Plague, and Penumbra: Requiem are three games that blend horror and adventure and are now available as The Penumbra Collection.
Anyway, the games follow a 30-something chap named Phillip. The year is 2000, and his mother just died. It was at this time that he received a letter from his unknown father, a man Phillip had long thought to be dead. The letter directed him to a bank deposit box filled with strange information and a map to a place in Greenland. So, instead of burning the map and information, Phillip travels to Greenland to find his long-lost father. However, instead of Greenland, he ends up in a mine that was used as a shelter during World War II and ultimately finds himself in an underground research lab. Yeah, it’s a pretty interesting plot. However, I have a major issue with all of this: Phillip’s character is never fully developed or explained beyond the original introduction. He’s just sort of there while you explore. He starts rather strong with his voicing the introductions in the first two games, but after that his voice just ... vanishes.
So how do the games get away with this? Everything is seen from Phillip’s perspective. In other words, the game is played from the first-person perspective. Controls are the traditional first-person shooter, WASD keys movement (strafing and moving forwards and backwards) with the mouse rotating the camera. The best way to think of this game is a horror game with very strong adventure genre elements. You’ll wander around, usually stealthy since most of the monsters cannot be killed and attacking is annoying. Granted, Phillip acts like someone who doesn’t know how to properly hit something, and this makes killing those $@#% dogs throughout the first episode so annoying. At first they are rather creepy, with those yellow eyes looking at you. But when you’re on a box for 20 minutes, they stop being creepy and become annoying.
Anyway, you’ll have to hunt and peck for the proper items or information to move forward. And some of the puzzles can be rather tricky to solve. Some are basic physics-based puzzles such as stacking boxes together to get to a higher spot or being able to jump over something, while others are more traditional. And some are a combination of both. For example, in the first game you’ll have to turn a generator to turn on the lights. First you’ll need to push the crate into the pit to open it. From there, you’ll have to follow the hints to turn the valves in the proper order. Another puzzle in a different part of the series, Requiem, has you defying gravity to reach a broken ladder. The downside is that it can be rather difficult to solve. I do have an issue with a puzzle about halfway through Overture in which I was trying to get a digging machine moving. It kept complaining there was no power in the machine, but I clearly remember seeing sparks whenever I plugged it in. Did I miss something (I honestly don’t believe I did because I was following a FAQ) or is it some sort of bug that I managed to hit?
The most different out of the three games is Requiem. Instead of forcing the player to go stealth like the previous installments, it’s all about the puzzles. Sometimes it’s a tad obtuse; other times it’s rather straightforward. Dangers are predominately drowning/suffocation, explosions and missing the moving platform. The horror in this installment is all about the feel of the place, not with things somehow jumping out at you. Also, the game’s referencing will not make much sense unless you’ve played through a fair amount of the first two installments.
Anyway, in the first game, Overture, it was a tad difficult to figure out where Phillip’s hand was located. I had to move the camera around to find his hand to pick up an item. Of course, I could supersede this by pressing the “r” key and then moving the mouse over to the item of interest. Also, using the hammer or mattock (pickax) is somewhat cumbersome as you literally have to move the mouse from one side of the mousepad to the other while holding the left mouse button. (If you play games on a laptop, this is one of those games in which an external mouse is practically mandatory because it makes things much easier than the touchpad.) Everything is more refined in Black Plague and Requiem. Regardless of the installment, moving things around is rather unintuitive — even though all you have to do is grab hold of the object using the left mouse button. Furthermore, it’s difficult to rotate things. It takes far too much effort to move something the way I would in the real world. Thankfully, the game tends to lock on to places where external items are meant to be. For example, one puzzle has you using a metal bar to open it. That bar locks into place once you get it close to where it is meant to be.
Graphically, the game is rather neat to look at. It’s realistic looking, and perhaps that’s what makes it so disturbing. Since nothing is left to the imagination, the mind is left to take things even further — deepening the horror. For some odd reason, whenever I play the games, there often are graphic disorders. This just disturbs the experience. I do not remember this from when I played Overture two years ago. However, I might be romanticizing that experience.
But there is one thing they got right with the graphics: The opsis! (“Opsis” is a fancy literary term that means “setting.”) It just feels horrifically creepy. If there is one place you would not want to be, this is the place. Early in the first game, you encounter a giant spider corpse and hear smashing of things while you‘re ending the rooms. There are those evil dogs that just do not know when to stay dead, the creepily disturbing voice of Red (who sounds more like a Russian immigrant than a trapped WWII vet [or so it seems to me]), crazed events that are recorded through the various letters/notes, cave-ins, colossal worms, virus-created zombies (different than the T-virus because they are organically made, not synthetic ... still creepy, though) ... it just works. There’s a reason those old haunted houses work: It’s a perfect setting for insanity. It encourages the imagination to go wild. The mines and research center used in this series is no exception.
Audio is rather solid. Boxes have a nice smash sound when destroyed and a good thud when thrown. Spider squeals and dog howls are quick hair raisers. Steam is a nerve-racking sound because it rends Phillip unconscious in mere seconds. The man who voices Phillip does an excellent job in the intro, and Red, while sounding a little Russian, helps keep the insanity in tow. Clarence (if I expand on this, it’ll ruin the plot) in the second episode fills in that void with his creepy voice.
Overall, The Penumbra Collection is not something that will appeal to everyone. However, the games are exceedingly solid, especially if you like adventure games. I confess I like different aspects of the game better than others. I love the physics and the horrific opsis. Yet, it seems to have all of the quirks of the adventure genre that drive me a tad nuts.
If I had to choose a particular installment that everyone should play, that is a tad difficult. Even though Penumbra: Black Plague is the most refined of all the installments, I believe Overture has the stronger opsis. The scares are a bit stronger, and it feels far less cliché than the other installments. Furthermore, it sticks to its strengths more frequently. One episode costs about $15, though you can pick up all three for $20 through a wide variety of sites, including Amazon.com. Heck, $20 is a great deal for a very solid series. If you’re interested, there are a fair amount of trailers to watch and a demo of the first installment to play. While I do not think the horror is as strong as other games, it is a great way to get in the mood once the leaves turn orange and red. Check it out. It’s really not a bad way to spend a few nights if you have the time.
