The Penumbra Collection

To me this series, together with that other gem from Frictional Games - Amnesia: The dark decent, are some of the most memorable and enjoyable games I've ever played. I have a Linux port of this series (which I either bought direct from Frictional Games or through Humble Bundle - don't remember which). I would dearly have loved to add the series to my GOG collection as well; however, to this day GOG does not provide a Linux port, which I find somewhat strange, given (1) its existence on other platforms, as I mentioned above, and (2) the availability of Linux versions of several other products from Frictional Games.

The Penumbra Series is a good horror collection, not great but good. The atmosphere is tense and you feel like you're in real danger constantly (which you are). Overture has some major mechanical flaws, namely the combat, but is legitimately creepy. Black Plague is the best of the series with improved graphics, controls and even creepier atmosphere. Requiem can safely be passed as it's not that great. While not as good as Frictional's Magnum Opus, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, it's still good for those looking for a legit horror experience.

The Penumbra collection is composed of two games (Penumbra: Overture & Penumbra: Black Plague) and an expansion (Penumbra: Requiem). The first game starts scary, but outstays its welcome almost immediately. The game likes to hide pieces to its puzzles across several rooms and several load zones, meaning completing puzzles takes way longer, but only because it takes longer to complete the pixel hunt requires to even start the puzzle. The puzzles also have an issue where they like to kill you for getting them wrong, which cheapens death to the point of not being scary. The game then swiftly stops being scary at all once you realize you can kill the monsters and they never get replaced after you do so. The second game fixes this issue by removing combat- one awkward boss fight aside- but keeps the issue of having to run across twenty billion load screens just to solve one puzzle and death is cheapened by failing said puzzles constantly killing you. It's an improvement on Overture, but still very jank overall. Requiem is awful. I'm sorry, I know we're supposed to be constructive, but Requiem is an absolute slog. It's all puzzles, and there's fewer load times now, but the rooms are so massive that minimizing loads fails to correct the issue. The game also kills you a lot less for failing them, but that doesn't matter, because there's basically no atomsphere. Just play the first two and forget this one exists. It's worth playing these games for novelty's sake, but they don't hold up to something like Amnesia. Arguably, they don't even hold up against White Day, which predates it by several years. Perhaps, just for that novelty, it's worth 10 bucks.

...then you'll love The Penumbra Collection. I had a feeling it would shortly be released on GOG after Amnesia finally got it's release here. I echo the sentiments of the other reviewers on here in saying that Overture and Plague are the best of the three, but they're all that you'll need (usually two out of three aint bad, but here they're perfect). After playing them, you won't even care that Requiem is in there and isn't that good. The gameplay, especially mouse control items, is a bit different, but with a bit of time you do get used to it and it doesn't really spoil the game that much. I, personally, don't think it effects the game at all. It's a great little set of horrors!

There's not much to say other than these are some incredibly creepy games. I went in not expecting much but ended up surprised at how scared I was at times. The game is basically a horror version of Half Life 2 physics. The one downside I have to mention is the first game's (Overture) "combat". It's the one entry where they wanted you to confront the enemies and you end up just clumsily swinging a pipe at zombie dogs all game. Thankfully the other games are designed around running away from more diverse enemies.