Penumbra: Overture - Final Play - Finished

In Penumbra, the sense of isolation and desperation grows incrementally thicker with each passing corridor. It’s an intimate experience from a small roster of inspired designers (about 6 names in the credits) that stretches deep into the subconscious and says a lot about what being an individual lost in an interactive medium is all about.

But as satisfying as this intrigue sounds, there were a few things standing in the way of this being a wholly engrossing experience. First off, it’s punitive. There are more than a few puzzles that make you dive in blind and find the right path –usually at the cost of your life. I talked a bit about one such occurrence in the last play rating, and in that instance I came away with a sense of achievement. But after that, I usually walked away indignant.

On the other hand, the game nails its stealthy aspects. In the first few hours, I wouldn’t fight until it was absolutely necessary. But, in reality, it’s possible to hide, run and fight your way out of most situations. And usually, it’s a combination of the three that’s gonna get you to where you’re going. That’s all well and good, but there are stretches of sneaking around that go on forever. Heaven forbid you lose where you’re going, turn the wrong corner and end up getting mauled. You’re bound to need a pep talk after that happens the fifth time. “Deep breaths, you can do this. Remember, keep track of every step.” And, yeah, a better gamer probably wouldn’t let that stand in his way. But I have needs.

The sense of hopelessness these crushing, overlong sequences instilled seemed to play well into the game’s modus operandi: Though Phillip — the protagonist — was in a desperate journey to get out of the caves, he was always moving deeper into them. The game’s faults are smothering, but they are delightfully so. That is, if you can get past the frustration.

What’s more intuitively charming about the game is how it marries its competent mechanics with the living design of the caves. Your surroundings feel abandoned in the way that they were once inhabited. The rusty, arcane machinery is still — with a little help — mindlessly performing the jobs it did decades ago. Signs of struggle and loss fill distinctive locations that are tied to successive corridors in narrative threads both radioed in and written down. When you really start cranking all this stuff up, it’s a refreshing glimmer of progress shining through the miles of rubble piling up on top of you. It’s Indiana Jones, or at least Boxcar Children, for those who revel in the dread rather than the excitement of solving mysteries.

It’s an experience all it’s own even long after the physics and melee gimmicks have worn their welcome. And the ending is so well baked, so unexpectedly wicked that the successive entries are now absolutely necessary. I’m not totally sold on the game’s play formula, but I’m too invested in its characters — Phillip and the mine — not to give them another shot.

I played Penumbra with Vista on an Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 dual-core (1.80GHz, 800MHz FSB, 2MB L2 Cache), 2 gig of DDR2 RAM, and a GeForce 7600GS.