By // Nicole
System // Mac/Steam
A Game By // Frictional Games
Obviously, playing Frictional Games’ first series, Penumbra, is exactly what has to happen after you finish playing their hit horror game, Amnesia: the Dark Descent. So that’s exactly what did happen towards the end of this past summer. The Steam Summer Sale… The Penumbra Collectors Pack… $4.99
The story begins in an abandoned mine. After attending his mother's funeral, your character has received a letter from his long deceased father, requesting his help. Your character tracks him to this location and becomes stuck in the mine. The cavernous environment is definitely dark and creepy. There's some areas that have rooms—with creeky floors and doors—that used to be inhabited and some areas that are just rocky passage ways with dangerous creatures lurking. You slowly learn about all the bad things that have gone down in this mine via notes you discover laying around as you explore. Apparently, people have been hearing noises and going crazy, management has been acting very suspicious, and some guy is eating spiders.
The big enemies in this game are glowy-eyed zombie guard dogs. The most horrifying thing about them is that sometimes you have to beat them to death, which is really difficult and takes a shit ton of finesse with the physics engine the game uses. You have to time the swing of your weapon just so… and a thrown object could land practically anywhere. I recommend jumping up on something just out of the dog's reach. It will run around like crazy and you can try to time your assaults for when he's in a good position, and then proceed make the mad dash to safety—hoping the physics will allow you to make the same jumps you did before. You may be yelling at your character in terror at this point. Sometimes the dog might find a way to glitch himself up to your safe haven. This was a bad idea all along wasn't it? Just run.
There’s also these giant worm things—I never really bought the story that tried to explain why these guys were down there. I think they just really wanted to have some sort of giant, insta-kill monster in the game. There was definitely a pretty intense obstacle course like chase scene at one point that was pretty good. I’m going to assume you’ve already played Amnesia when I say: remember the part where you had to run from the water monster? Pretty much exactly like that. Pure terror.
The absolute biggest thing that Overture has over the other games is Red. Red is a character that starts talking to you over the walkie-talkie you find. He’s a great character—definitely crazy as hell, but good or bad? It’s hard to tell. Red wants you to find him, so that basically becomes your goal—since there’s no other quest-givers down here, but you have no idea if you’re going to find a peaceful damsel in distress or a violent death at the hands of a crazed lunatic. He’s your best friend either way, because you’ve got no one else. It’s a great psychological element that’s kind of missing later in the series.
The cliff-hanger ending of Overture was also terrifying and perfect.
The biggest improvements that came with Black Plague was having creepier enemies and not having melee weapons. Apparently you can still manage to kill the enemies by hitting them in the head with a box a dozen times, but I sure as hell would never attempt it. Given, sometimes you're put into a situation in this game where you are forced to deal with the enemy, somehow or another, instead of having the option to run away. I didn’t like being put in these situations. They were super terrifying and a little bit frustrating because it's very unclear what you are supposed to be doing at the time. You just end up running around for a while, wondering why you can't find an escape and what you're supposed to do with this enemy you're basically locked in a room with. You don't really have time to stop and analyze the room to figure out the puzzle with all the imminent death, so you just have to think quick, try everything and keep moving. It may take a few laps around the room.
Black Plague is primarily set in an abandoned underground lab. Instead of dogs and spiders, the enemies are zombie-like infected humans. They are way scarier than dogs and spiders. They have flashlights and axes and sometimes… if you listen really closely… you can hear them talking while they search for you—sometimes saying things to you. It’s nightmare fuel.
Your primary objective for most of the second game is to find and rescue a real damsel in distress named Dr Amabel Swanson. She’s hiding somewhere in the lab and she has the formula for the cure to all your problems. She was actually pretty boring—and sadly, non-romanceable. I definitely missed Red. Not that Red was romanceable either... It sure does get lonely down here.
Speaking of Red, the absolute worst thing about the Black Plague was this character named Clarence. Clarence is an infectious entity—a voice in your head. The concept of Clarence is not too bad. I have a feeling they were trying to duplicate a little bit of the ‘Red’ element from the first game, even though they already had Dr. Amabel fulfilling part of that role. There was just so much wrong with this character. The voice for Clarence was really poorly chosen. He sounds like some comically snarky old man, and he makes too many jokes for a horror game. He takes away from the scariness of the game every time he starts wisecracking. Red had some somewhat humorous moments because he was fucking crazy as hell, but it was subtle and more weird than funny. I don’t know why they felt the need to have humor in the dialogue but it just didn’t work.
The story of Black Plague slowly reveals what the hell is going on down here and the last part of the game actually gets pretty trippy. Because of this it lacks a lot of mystery that the first game had, but the horror factor is definitely superior thanks to the new enemies.
So I don’t know if Requiem is it’s own game, an expansion to Black Plague, or what—but it sucked. The only good thing about this game is that I was in constant fear that the next moment was definitely going to be the moment I was attacked by some monstrous creature, thanks to the previous two games. Spoiler Alert: There’s no fucking monsters in this game at all. All there are… are puzzles. This game has a lot of puzzles—room after room of puzzles. Some of the puzzles are really frustrating, because they rely on the unpredictable physics of the game. Have you ever tried to balance a box on a floaty light fountain? How about three boxes? Now jump up the floaty light fountain box stairs in 1st person and sometimes your weight knocks the boxes off their floaty light pedestals. It’s pure hell. Now imagine 5 hours of this bullshit.
Obviously, Frictional Games has done nothing but improve over time. Penumbra is not as polished a horror game as Amnesia is, but in a lot of ways I found Penumbra to be a lot creepier. There's a lot more mystery in the Penumbra series—especially in Overture, when you have absolutely no clue what is going on, or where this story is headed. There's more of a supernatural tone that begins to explain the events of the story in Black Plague, but there's more intense danger to keep you on the edge of your seat. If you like to be terrified, play this series! Play Amnesia: The Dark Descent! Then keep an eye out for Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, because Frictional Games knows how to do horror games.
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