A flicker of light in the thick darkness may be deceiving.
"Overture
n
- orchestral music played at the beginning of an opera or oratorio;
- something that serves as a preceding event or introduces what follows." - definr.com
A fitting name for the first instalment of an episodic horror game, isn't it? No cheap puns, no "l33t" letters and no worn out, trite phrases. Subtle, yet straight to the point. Just like the game itself.
Penumbra: Overture starts with a man named Philip writing a letter to you. Apparently, he tried to achieve something, but, through numerous mistakes, failed. He is now asking you to do what he intended, and speaks of his story so that you wouldn't make the same mistakes he did.
You relive Philip's memories by playing as him. After the loss of his mother, his father, who had abandoned the two, suddenly contacts Philip and tells him to retrieve documents belonging to him (Philip's father) which must be destroyed. Of course, Philip decides to look in them instead of destroying them.
His findings lead him to Greenland, where he is caught unprepared by the cold, and is eventually driven by it into an abandoned mine, which traps him inside as soon as he enters it. Philip soon realises that it's best to move forward, instead of staying put and hoping Lady Luck smiles to him.
This is where I stop writing about the story and (finally) start describing how the game plays. The game is played from the first person perspective, and the pace of the game is fairly slow (you can sprint, yes, though that is inadvisable). This is emphasised by how you interact with your environment.
Forget about pressing 'E' or 'F' and letting the game do everything for you. In Penumbra: Overture, you interact with the world by pressing and holding your left mouse button and then move your mouse, mimicking a real life movement required to interact with a specific object. For example, if you want to open the door, you click on the whereabouts of the handle and push forward. The harder you push, the faster the door will open... and the more likely it is to be pushed back and close again because of the momentum. You can also open the door by clicking on the centre of the door, but it'll open slower.
This is how you carry lighter items, push/pull heavier ones, open doors, pull levers, turn valves, swing your weapon and more. The exception is pushing buttons, of course. It's disappointing that you can't throw buttons around, but you can't have everything, eh?
This system is fairly intuitive and adds a lot of depth to the game. Unless you've held a Wii controller in your hand, the first few levels in Penumbra: Overture are going to be really awkward, in a good way. It feels like staring at one of those optical illusions for too long.
On the other hand, the downfall of this system is that it works good for the 'adventure' part of an action adventure game, but not the 'action' part. Naturally, it takes you longer to interact with an object in the world, and there are times in the game when you must act quickly. An example would be combat - your enemies are fairly quick, while it takes a bit of time to swing your weapon (a rusty hammer, for example). You may also inadvertently aim elsewhere by moving the mouse before clicking the button, like me, and miss the enemy by a margin.
Speaking of combat, the fact that hits don't count when the enemy is knocked down is no less frustrating than the ineffective attack method. Not to mention that larger enemies have the tendency to push you away when they get up, and you must readjust your aim. Good luck with doing that before the baddie runs away (and calls in 'reinforcements'). I won't even mention how pointless it is to hit smaller creatures. My advice - run past those.
Luckily enough, you'll often deal with enemies indirectly or simply avoid them by sneaking past the critters. Stealth in Penumbra: Overture is very similar to that found in Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher's Bay - you avoid any and all light sources and crouch down. The edge of your screen turns blueish. At this point, you become harder to see, but you're still visible. If you stay still long enough, which is a few seconds, you'll become hidden - your field of view will increase in width, and you'll see better in the dark (through the blue tint). Don't look at enemies for too long, though - you'll begin to panic and you may reveal yourself.
Speaking of enemies, most of the enemies you face are common animals, but with a monstrous twist. If you have no problems with zombie dogs with glowing eyes or oversized spiders, you should be safe.
The enemies don't pose as big a challenge as the environment itself does, though. As Penumbra is an action adventure game, you'll find a fair amount of puzzles, some of which are connected (e.g. complete this puzzle to solve the other one). The puzzles make sense, they're not too difficult, but not too easy, either. The best thing about them is how they differ from one another - you'll rarely find yourself solving identical puzzles.
However, progression contains a pattern. There's always a large area, with two things - enemies and smaller rooms, free of enemies, and usually containing a save point (quick notice - while you can't save manually, the saving system is very well placed), and items required to solve a puzzle. Once you complete all the puzzles in the large area, you enter another large area with enemies and smaller rooms, free of enemies, and usually containing a save point. It's somewhat disappointing, when the levels aren't all that repetitive. Come on, it's a mine, what do you expect, royal suites?
Now, I'm sure you want to know how scary the game is, but I'm afraid that it's pretty subjective, my friend. I think the atmosphere is definitely eerie, and alien sounds that plague the long-abandoned mine ought to leave most of the players tense and - perhaps - even at the edge of their seats. I've noticed that developers usually (try to) create fear by making the player guess what is next.
Various notes, logs, reports and documents of other sort also help fortify the creepy atmosphere dominating in the stone corridors of the mine. For example, you may read about a terrifying event, only to experience it yourself later.
Finally, dialogue. Its level of brilliance equals to dialogue found in Valve's games. Philip almost doesn't talk at all throughout the game, but he encounters someone who is quite chatty. And insane. Don't worry, the developers have pulled it off quite well. Both the writing and quality of voice acting is amazing.
All three of these things help create a highly believable world. A world, in shadows of which hides despair and... something that drove the former occupants off. And you were unfortunate enough to be chosen by Fate to find out what that something is.
If you're looking for more than just fun in a game, if you want a break from absurd shoot-outs, ridiculous stunts or colossal explosions, and want to delve into a claustrophobic world of mystery buried deep under solid rock, that has become a grave of many men, then Penumbra is the game for you. Although it is bogged down by hard-to-ignore gameplay problems such as iffy combat and repetitive progression, Penumbra: Overture is still a highly enjoyable game.
The second and last episode, Penumbra: Black Plague, is already out, so you need not worry about the game's length. Hope you'll enjoy your ride.