Penumbra: Overture (PC) Review

Penumbra inspires dread in a variety of ways. Firstly, it gives an atmospheric, slow-paced build up, with just a few hints of what's going on provided. Secondly, it gives gamers the time to make their own way forward, without ever rushing them - they have to open that scary door themselves.

The sense of immersion is also helped by the puzzles; puzzles that all have a very "real" feeling to them, being mostly based around physics or motion. It all feels very natural, and when things don't work, it somehow feels more acceptable because everything is in the context of a real world. If hitting the axe to make sparks to light a fuse doesn't work, well, maybe it just doesn't light that easily. This isn't about point-and-click-like puzzles where it all normally comes down to item mixing; these are real problems, logically with a few solutions or ways of getting past something.

Sadly not all is quite perfect. In the most enclosed spaces, for instance, it can sometimes get a bit glitchy, and around half way into the adventure there are some dogs that respawn after carefully being taken out - counting the dogs, and carefully dealing with each of them is no good, if some new ones can pop into existence at any time. Given the realism of everything else, these respawning enemies slightly wreck the atmosphere. It would have been much better if the - hard to kill - enemies would remain dead, thus rewarding the player with being enabling a less cautious exploration of an area. In fact, given the way the area and the game presented the situation, it seemed almost like a glitch that they reappeared.

That being said, this is a minor negative in an otherwise pretty perfect horror experience. Despite Penumbra: Overture's age, the graphics hold out pretty good and complement its great writing and pacing, resulting in one of the most dread-inspiring atmospheres it's possible to experience in a video game.