Penumbra: Overture

I had started this game when I was gifted it by my husband around the same time he gifted me LOOM. I had never heard of it or played it. (Geeze, was I living under a rock or something when it came to these games?!)

Anyways, the idea interested me because I do enjoy scary games and apparently this was a psychologically scary one.

The artwork is really nice in this game.

A lot of dazzling beautiful pictures do not make a game though so once the gameplay started, I was excited.

Just for the record, I find it amusing when games take this approach in introducing a player how to use the controls:

(I had to make this one bigger so you could read what it said)

Anyways, so you find yourself in a snowy cold area trying to figure out your father's notes. The game starts you in the middle of a snowy area looking for shelter. You get into the sheltered area and that is when weird stuff starts happening which adds to the psychological thriller aspect of the game.

Here are some screenshots I took:

By this point, I had been playing the game for 3 hours and I was only halfway through it. I had to keep taking breaks every 20 minutes or so because I kept getting sick to my stomach. I decided at this point I would take a break and return to it later.

Two days later I came back to the game to finish.

I had been stuck running around zombie dogs that kept killing me. It frustrated the hell out of me and once I killed the last dog, I kept swinging my pick axe at it screaming victoriously.

I was able to figure out the next couple of situational "puzzles" and then I had to quit because by this time I was feeling really queasy. My husband watched me play and said that it was probably the bobbing motion that happens when I moved my character (walking/running).

I haven't beat it yet because it makes me ill to play, but I figured I would update my blog this week to let you know that I am still playing different games.

My observations? The sound effects are rather nice and the graphics are very pretty to look at. It was hard at first to center the items I wanted to use in the middle of the screen, but as time went on I was able to do it. (You have to do this in order to manipulate them with an eyeball or hand). There are parts in the game where you use a weapon (like a pick axe for example) to kill some beasties and that frustrated me to no end because the swing would be erratic. One second I'd swing like a pro and then I'd try to do the same swing again, utter failure. And I can confirm I did the mouse tapping/moving the exact same way. Not a fan. After playing for 30 minutes, I started to feel sick in my stomach and had to take a break. The only other game to do this to me was Doom 3.

Overall, nice game though I probably wouldn't really recommend it to people unless they want to try a game that has a good psychological suspense/horror atmosphere in it.